30 Dragon
by mackillian
Summary: AU. Alistair isn't the only illegitimate son of King Maric. Where Eamon failed, the Couslands did not, and raised Maric's other son as their own.
1. Chapter 1

"Those who bear false witness

And work to deceive others, know this:

All things are known to our Maker

And He shall judge their lies."

—_Canticle of Transfigurations 1:4_

**1**

**Malcolm**

The Highever troops were readying for battle. As Malcolm made his way toward the main hall of Highever Castle to answer a summons from his father, he felt almost envious. No, no. That was a lie. He _was_ envious. An air of excitement, of preparation, of anticipation had run through the castle over the past week. While Malcolm had felt that air, he wasn't enveloped by it because he was apart from it. He already knew that he would be left behind at the castle while his father and brother went with the troops to fight the darkspawn horde in the south. Intellectually, he knew perfectly well why it had to be that way—a teyrn couldn't have all his heirs on the battlefield at once—and he agreed. But, the idea of being left behind left him... itchy. Restless.

As Malcolm slipped quietly into the main hall, he took note that Arl Rendon Howe had finally arrived at least. Yet his troops seemed to still be missing. Howe must have ridden ahead of his contingent. Malcolm hid a smile. At how late Howe's troops were, riding ahead of them wouldn't take much effort at all. Howe could've outpaced them by riding a donkey if he wanted. He listened as his father, Teyrn Bryce Cousland, and Arl Howe continued their conversation reminiscing about the old days when they'd fought in the Rebellion. Malcolm had a hard time imagining them thirty years younger. Well, not as much his father. They had a portrait somewhere in the family library of him from the Rebellion days. Young Bryce had looked remarkably like what Malcolm's older brother Fergus did now. But Arl Howe... Malcolm just couldn't picture him as a young man. At the moment, he could barely get the droopy, hooked nose out of his mind.

Teyrn Cousland's eyes flicked over toward the door and he gave Malcolm a quick nod. "I'm sorry, Pup, I didn't see you there." Bryce motioned toward the door as Malcolm walked to the center of the room. "Howe, you remember my son?"

"You've grown into a fine young man," Howe said. "Pleased to see you again, lad."

Malcolm nodded. "And you, Arl Howe." Polite and diplomatic—it was always how you had to act with the nobility. Even if you were lying through your teeth and had dreaded seeing someone, you said you were happy to see them when they showed up. Like now. Arl Howe was much more formal than Teyrn Cousland, and when Howe was at the castle, protocols got a lot more complicated. And the heightened amount of ceremony and extreme politeness made Malcolm's dry sense of humor a lot more vocal, to his detriment.

Howe had continued speaking. "My daughter Delilah asked after you. Perhaps I should bring her next time."

Delilah had asked after him? _Highly_ unlikely. She'd never been able to stand him since he'd accidentally spattered mud all over her new dress when they were little. He was so caught off guard that he had no idea what to say. "To what end?" he finally asked, honestly curious.

"'To what end' he says!" Howe repeated and laughed. "And so glib. The boy's a whip, like his father!"

Clearly Howe had misread the situation and decided that Malcolm was being acerbic and not serious. Though, to be fair, the normal odds were that he was being glib. At least this time his nature got him out of a social jam, however small it might have been.

"See what I contend with, Howe? You can't tell my fierce boy anything these days, Maker bless his heart," said Bryce, shaking his head at his son.

Malcolm knew very well that 'Maker bless his heart' really meant that he'd get a long lecture later about being appropriate when with company. He'd gotten a lot of those. Fergus reckoned that Malcolm had passed him years ago in total time spend being lectured by Teyrn Cousland, and Fergus had more than a decade on him. And that wasn't even counting if their mother got wind of it and took him to task herself. Maker, he hoped his father wouldn't pass along the story.

"At any rate, Pup, I summoned you here for a reason. While your brother and I are both away, I'm leaving you in charge of the castle."

_I knew it_, he thought. "I'll do my best, Father."

"Now that's what I like to hear."

Malcolm hoped that meant he'd escape being lectured for earlier. He wouldn't have objected in front of Arl Howe anyway. The family was always supposed to present a united front when other nobles were around. Yes, they could argue in private, but never in public. Malcolm had already tried pointing out that it would be better for him, the younger son, to go off to battle instead of Fergus, the eldest and therefore the heir. But for some reason, their father wouldn't allow it. Wouldn't even consider it. As Malcolm saw it, he was much more expendable than his brother, when looked at practically. Of course, his real reason was that he was getting antsy with staying in the castle and even within the territory of Highever itself. He'd never gone to a Landsmeet like Fergus had, or gone on long trips to Denerim, or even been a squire for another Bann or Arl. After nearly twenty years, he was starting to feel more than cooped up, even with how vast Highever was.

As he'd been thinking, Malcolm realized that his father had kept talking.

"Only a token force is remaining here and you must keep peace in the region," Bryce finished. "You know what they say about mice when the cat is away, yes?"

Malcolm looked up. "What? Oh, yes. Playing and all that. Leaving yarn everywhere. And dead birds. Cats love to give people dead birds for presents. Not sure why. Part of why I prefer dogs."

Arl Howe gave him a peculiar look.

"What? Do you like being given dead birds as gifts, Arl Howe? I didn't realize you were a cat person. My apologies."

"Malcolm," Bryce said, his voice tight in warning.

"Right, sorry. Manners. My apologies again."

The teyrn sighed. "Also, there's someone you must meet." He motioned toward one of the nearby servants. "Please, show Duncan in."

The servant gave a slight bow before disappearing into the hall briefly. When he came back, he was accompanied by a man near his father's age, perhaps a bit younger by a year or two. But his dark brown eyes held an age that seemed much older than Bryce. His face was darker, probably Rivaini. A longsword and dagger were sheathed on his back, ever ready for battle. The man inclined his head slightly toward Bryce. "It is an honor to be a guest within your hall, Teyrn Cousland." His voice was remarkably warm, yet Malcolm could tell it could be as piercing as the sword he carried if he so chose.

Howe looked from Bryce, to Duncan, and to Bryce again, his eyes looking like they might take the opportunity to jump from his head. "Your Lordship, you didn't mention a Grey Warden would be present."

Malcolm wondered if his father had neglected to tell Howe on purpose.

"Duncan arrived just recently, unannounced." Bryce raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

The eyebrow gave it away. Teyrn Cousland _had_ done it on purpose. It took all of Malcolm's will to maintain a straight face as Howe spluttered. "Of course not, but a guest of his stature demands certain protocol. I am... at a disadvantage."

Malcolm didn't see how there was any sort of disadvantage. Seeing the beaten, yet well-cared-for armor that Duncan wore, obviously the Grey Warden didn't stand on ceremony. Neither did the Couslands. The only ceremony they stood on was whatever other people called for. The Howes did most of that calling. And his mother, when she decided he needed to practice manners. _That_ happened much more often than he'd liked. More than once she'd threatened to send him to the Chantry for some proper teaching. As his son desperately tried to keep himself from laughing, the teyrn replied, "We rarely have the pleasure of seeing one in person, that's true." He turned toward his stricken son, whose blue eyes were darting everywhere but at Arl Howe's face. "Pup, Brother Aldous taught you who the Grey Wardens are, I hope?"

Malcolm racked his brain for some good information, but he was so busy trying not to laugh that he could only remember a vague and fairly lame answer. "They defeated the darkspawn long ago." Even five-year-olds knew _that._ He might as well had added something about griffons.

"Not permanently, I fear," Duncan said, the sadness in his voice evident.

"Without their warning of the darkspawn rising now, half our nation could've been overrun before we'd had a chance to react," Bryce said. "Duncan is looking for recruits before joining us and his fellow Wardens in the south. I believe he's got his eye on Ser Gilmore."

It took a lot of Malcolm's upbringing to keep himself from accusing his father of torturing him with this information. He _really_ didn't need to know that more people were going south to help with the darkspawn threat, and that he wasn't one of those 'more people,' yet again.

"If I might be so bold, I would suggest that your son is also an excellent candidate," said Duncan.

"Honor though that might be, this is one of my sons we're talking about," said the teyrn.

Malcolm really wanted to tell his father 'I told you so' after all the arguments they'd had over the past few days. But he didn't actually say it. Not really. "I rather like that idea, Father."

Bryce addressed his answer to Duncan. "I've not so many children that I'll gladly see them of to battle. Unless you intend to invoke the Right of Conscription?"

It wasn't like his father didn't also have a grandson, either. His brother's son, Oren. That gave him three heirs right there. He could send two to battle. Except that Oren was just five and if anything happened to all three of them—the teyrn, Fergus, and him—then someone would be stuck being Oren's regent for many years. Which was actually a point his father had made several times over.

"Have no fear," Duncan replied. "While we need as many good recruits as we can find, I've no intention of forcing the issue."

Part of Malcolm was disappointed. The other, surprisingly relieved.

Teyrn Cousland glanced over at his younger son. "Pup, can you ensure that Duncan's requests are seen to while I'm gone?"

"Of course."

"In the meantime, find Fergus and tell him to lead the troops to Ostagar ahead of me."

Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen his brother all day. "Where _is_ Fergus?"

"Upstairs in his chambers, no doubt, spending some last moments with his wife and my grandson. Be a good lad and do as I've asked. And after supper, I want to have a talk with you."

Malcolm knew when he was dismissed. He nodded to the three men and left the room, wondering what he was getting a talking-to about later. His comments hadn't been _that_ bad. Had they? He'd barely gotten out of the door before he heard one of his father's knights calling his name.

Ser Gilmore had been waiting outside the hall. "There you are. Your mother told me the teyrn had summoned you, so I didn't want to interrupt."

Malcolm blinked. "Hello to you, too, Ser Gilmore."

Gilmore gave a half-smile. "Pardon my manners, my lord. I fear your hound has the kitchens in an uproar again. Nan is threatening to leave."

That statement made Malcolm grin. "She was my nanny before she was the cook. Nan won't leave." Nan had threatened to quit at least fifty times since she'd become the cook instead of the nanny, and probably about forty of those times were due to Malcolm's dog or Malcolm himself. She'd yet to make good on any of those threats. She might scold a lot, but she had one of the biggest, softest hearts Malcolm had ever known.

"Your mother disagrees," continued Gilmore, still trying to catch his breath. "She insists you collect the dog, and quickly. You know these mabari hounds. They listen only to their master. Anyone else risks having an arm bitten off."

"Gunnar knows better than to hurt anyone." Malcolm, and everyone else, knew perfectly well that unless someone was threatened, the most risk they had around Gunnar was getting pounced on in a mabari version of a hug. Gunnar was just... aggressively friendly at times. Malcolm frowned in the direction of the kitchens.

"I'm not willing to test that," said Gilmore. "You're quick lucky to have your own mabari warhound, you know. Smart enough not to talk, my father used to say. Of course, that means he's easily bored. Like his master, my father also says."

"Very funny." He started walking towards the kitchens.

Gilmore followed. "Nan swears he confounds her just to amuse himself."

"He might have learned that from me," Malcolm said. At Ser Gilmore's dubious look, he amended, "Okay, he _did_ learn it from me."

Nan's shouting came through the rough stone walls of the castle and the stout wooden door of the kitchens. "Get that bloody mutt out of the larder!"

The knight made a face. "When Nan's unhappy, she sure makes sure everyone knows it." He opened the door. "Calm down, good woman. We've come to help."

Nan turned around from scolding the two kitchen servants to the two young men who'd walked into her domain. "You," she said, pointing at Gilmore, and then at Malcolm. "And _you. _Your bloody mongrel keeps getting into my larder! That beast should be put down!"

Malcolm couldn't stop himself. "Maybe _you_ should be put down."

Nan's eyes grew wider. "What? That monster is in _my_ larder, slobbering all over the bacon, and you're insulting _me_?"

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Oh, Nan, it wasn't an insult—"

She threw up her hands. "That's it. I'll quit. Inform the teyrna. I'll go cook at some nice estate in the Bannorn."

Gilmore threw a glare at Malcolm before attempting to placate Nan. "Please! We'll get the dog. Calm down."

"Just get him gone! I've enough to worry about what with a castle full of hungry soldiers!"

The two young men scooted past the angry older woman and peered into the larder. Crates and sacks lay every which way, various ingredients spread across the floor, and in the middle of it all, Gunnar barked and spun around in happy circles.

"Just look at that mess," said Gilmore. "How did he even get in here?"

Malcolm ignored his friend's question. "Are you trying to tell me something, boy?" he asked his dog.

Gunnar, on his part, continued to bark and spin, indicating that, yes, he was trying to tell his silly human something important.

"He does seems like he's trying to tell you something." Gilmore paused and cocked his head toward the far wall. "Wait, do you hear that?"

That was when giant rats burst out of a couple holes in the wall and made Malcolm almost scream like a little girl. Between the three of them, they dispatched the rats rather handily. Once the problem was taken care of, Malcolm found a stray piece of burlap to wipe his blade with.

"Giant rats?" Gilmore took the other burlap scrap Malcolm offered. "It's like the start of every bad adventure tale my grandfather used to tell."

Malcolm laughed. "In those same stories, one or both of us would end up being some long-lost prince."

"If that has to be true, I hope it's not me. That would put the end to my joining the Grey Wardens." Gilmore finished cleaning off his blade and pocketed the burlap to throw away later. "You know, you could pass for a Theirin prince if you wanted to masquerade as one. I remember meeting King Maric when I was a boy. You resemble him. And King Cailan, too."

Malcolm scoffed. "If I look like them, it's coincidental. And if you go back far enough, Couslands are related to Theirins somewhere around the time of Calenhad the Great. Or after. I really should have paid a bit more attention to Brother Aldous."

The knight smiled. "It's not your fault, my lord. He was my teacher too, and boy, was he ever boring." Gilmore looked at the dead rats on the stone floor again. "Your hound must have chased the rats in through their holes or something. Looks like he wasn't raiding the larder after all."

Gunnar barked happily. Malcolm smirked. "It certainly looks that way."

"Those rats were from the Korcari Wilds. Best not tell Nan. She's upset enough as it is. But seeing as you've got your mabari well in hand, I'll be on my way. I'm to prepare for the arrival of more of the arl's men. Oh, and I won't tell anyone how you screamed like a little girl."

"I did not scream like a little girl. I didn't even scream. Don't you go and spread rumors like that, ser knight."

Gilmore just smiled at walked away. Malcolm sighed and left the larder, Gunnar at his side.

As soon as they were back into the kitchen proper, Nan fixed a glare on the mabari. "There he is, as brazen as you please, licking his chops after helping himself to the roast, no doubt!"

Malcolm couldn't let that pass, not after his dog had practically saved the kitchens. "Actually, he was defending your larder from rats." He paused for effect. "Big ones."

The two servants in the room gasped.

Nan rounded a glare on him. "See! Now you've gone and scared the servants. I expect those filthy things are dead?"

Malcolm scratched Gunnar behind the ear. "My faithful warhound made sure it's safe."

Nan looked doubtful. "Hmph. I bet that dog led those rats in there to begin with."

Gunnar whined indignantly. He knew very well what Nan was going on about.

"Oh, don't even start with the sad eyes." Nan put her hands on her hips. "I'm immune to your so-called charms."

Gunnar whined again.

Nan let out a sigh before grabbing some morsels off the table. "Here, then. Take these pork bits and don't say that Nan never gives you anything. Bloody dog." She looked at Malcolm. "Thank you, my lord. Now we can get back to work." Then her attention was away from the boy and back to her staff. "That's right, you two, quit standing about!"

Malcolm made his escape before Nan put him to work, too. She'd done it enough times before where he knew to scoot when he had the chance. Before he could fully escape, she managed to ruffle his short, reddish hair, letting him know she forgave him for his comments. Gunnar stayed with him as he slowly made his way up to where his brother's rooms were located. He wondered if he'd get a chance to talk to Duncan at all while he was here. If he was going down to Ostagar with his father's contingent, he wouldn't be here long. If he couldn't join the Grey Wardens, he'd like to at least hear some stories from an actual Grey Warden instead of his tutor. And since there'd been a few battles with darkspawn in the south already, the stories could even be recent events instead of ancient history.

As he rounded a corner, he heard his mother talking. "And my dear Bryce brought this back from Orlais last year. The marquis who gave it to him was drunk and mistook Bryce for the king." Eleanor Cousland noticed her son walk around the corner. "Ah, here is my younger son. I take it by the presence of that troublesome hound of yours that the situation in the kitchen is handled?"

Malcolm nodded. "Yes. Nan's head exploded and my hound ate the kitchen staff."

His mother, used to his comments, played along. "Well, at least one of us will have had a decent dinner."

Gunnar barked in agreement.

"Perhaps your hound left something I can feed my guests," Eleanor said. "Darling, you remember Lady Landra? Bann Loren's wife?"

Dear Maker, how could he forget? The last formal event they'd held here, Lady Landra had gotten astonishingly drunk and had spent the night flirting with him. His face had never burned so red in his entire life.

"I think we met at your mother's spring salon," Landra said.

Malcolm inclined his head. "Of course. It's good to see you again, my lady."

Landra smiled in self-deprecation. "You're too kind, dear boy. Didn't I spend half the salon shamelessly flirting with you?"

"And right in front of your family, too," said Dairren.

"You remember my son, Dairren?" Landra asked.

Of course he did. Dairren's face has been just as red as his own.

"I believe you two sparred in the last tourney." Landra just wasn't pulling any punches today.

"And you beat me handily, as I recall," Dairren said, shaking Malcolm's hand. "It's good to see you again, my lord."

"And you, Dairren." Malcolm was still surprised Landra had brought up her son's defeat. She seemed kinder than that. Perhaps she was absentminded. Or drunk. Or on her way to drunk.

On her part, Lady Landra continued with introductions. "And this is my lady-in-waiting, Iona. Do say something, dear."

Iona inclined her head. "It's a great honor, my lord. I have heard wonderful things about you."

Malcolm couldn't imagine just what any of those 'wonderful things' could be. Before he could reply, Landra was nudging his mother and saying, "Don't look now, Eleanor, but I believe the girl has a crush on your lad."

Iona giggled. "Lady Landra!"

"Hush, Landra," said Eleanor. "You'll turn the poor thing scarlet."

Right. Even more awkward. "I'm standing right here," Malcolm said.

Lady Landra, followed by her lady-in-waiting and her son, excused themselves for the rest of the day. The awkwardness faded with each step the small retinue took in the opposite direction of him.

Turning back to his mother, Malcolm asked, "Did you know there's a Grey Warden here?"

Eleanor crossed her arms. "Yes, your father mentioned that." Her eyes narrowed. "You haven't gotten it into your head that you want to be recruited, have you?"

Malcolm crossed his own arms. "The darkspawn have returned. Grey Wardens are needed."

"There's enough here at the castle to occupy you. I don't need you off chasing danger like your brother."

The argument could not be won. It hadn't been won in the past weeks, and it was obvious to Malcolm that it wouldn't be won today, either. "I should go." He began to walk away, toward his brother's rooms. His mother's voice stopped him.

"I love you, my darling boy. You know that, don't you?"

He turned back towards her. "What brought this on?"

"You've grown up so fast, that's all. And now you're old enough to tell... well, there's no point in dwelling on it right now. I will see you later tonight." She walked away quickly, before Malcolm could ask her what it was she and his father wanted to talk to him about. Frowning, he went in search of his brother once again.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

**Bryce**

Bryce felt his body relax the moment Arl Howe left the main hall. The man was so ridiculously caught up with protocol that he could make a man tense even within his own home. He would never tell his sons, but he felt the same way about Howe visiting that they did. Drove him mad.

"You had warning that I was coming, Teyrn Cousland," Duncan said.

"Yes, I admit it, I set him up. I like to see him squirm and I don't get to see it often. He paused. "More like he makes others squirm with that imperious look of his. He's one of my oldest friends, but sometimes... oh, I don't know. Nevermind me." He crossed his arms and studied the Warden for a moment. "Gilmore isn't your first choice for a recruit, is he?"

"No, he is not. Malcolm is the strongest candidate here. We both know that. And we both know that your objection to him being recruited has nothing to do with worrying about your having enough heirs for your teyrnir."

Bryce sighed and motioned for Duncan to sit at one of the nearby tables. After they had settled into their chairs, he said, "We have raised him as our own since he was a babe. Eleanor and I love him as much as we do Fergus. My objections were true to what my heart says."

"Yet he is not of your blood."

"No. He's not, but that doesn't make him any less our son. We raised him. He may be of Theirin blood, but he has been my son. And before you say it, yes, I know that the Theirin blood runs strong in him." He sighed. "He looks much like Maric. It's a good thing I kept him away from court. There would have been questions. Even here, sometimes Eleanor or I would catch flights of rumors. Ser Gilmore was actually the inadvertent source of the last one after he met King Cailan last year. But, even with that sort of danger, I couldn't bring myself to do what Eamon did with Maric's other bastard. I couldn't give him to the Chantry. I suppose Isolde had her reasons for not believing that Alistair wasn't Eamon's bastard, but to feel so insecure as to send a ten-year-old boy to the Chantry to become a novice templar? Eleanor was incensed and nearly took her to task over the matter. But Maric reminded us, particularly my wife, that Eleanor had taken Malcolm in with me, and had known since the beginning whose blood the boy carried. And Isolde never had that sort of confidence. Even still... I would've taken both boys if Maric had allowed it."

"I know. And so did Maric. But your wife's miscarriage—"

Bryce held up a hand to stop his friend. "I know. The situation worked out for the best where Malcolm was concerned. And in the long run, for us as well. In giving up his son, Maric gave us our second one. But, Maker, _why_ does the Theirin blood show so strongly? It's made things harder. I'm surprised no one really suspected." He paused. "Do they?"

"No, not really. And if comments were made, they were reminded that the Couslands are distantly related to the Theirins and that Malcolm could be a throwback to those relatives. The explanation held for most people. Enough that no nobles seriously questioned Malcolm's parentage." Duncan smiled. "At least he doesn't look like his mother. That would be even more complicated. Sometimes, he reminds me of her, from the stories you've told me."

Bryce noticed that Duncan's look grew soft at the mention of Malcolm's natural mother. "You were her friend, weren't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I was. You know, she hated Maric for the longest time. After we brought Alistair back to Ferelden to give to Maric, Fiona left for Weisshaupt for good. Because she had somehow become the only Grey Warden to be rid of the taint, she was not allowed to leave after that. They both left it in the Maker's hands about whether they would see each other again. So when the First Warden invited Maric to Weisshaupt for a formal apology from the Grey Wardens to the nation of Ferelden for their argument long ago, Maric took that opportunity to see Fiona." He didn't need to elaborate on what the fallout from that meeting had been.

"So she really was a Grey Warden, then?"

"Yes. She joined the order about half a year before I did."

Bryce smiled. "No wonder King Maric decided to let the Wardens back into Ferelden. He'd fallen in love with one. I'm surprised he didn't marry her after their first child. Rowan had been dead for three years. No one would have objected. Well, maybe the Grey Wardens, and probably Loghain, but in the end Maric would have won them over. He had that way about him. People loved him. They just couldn't help it."

Duncan shook his head. "No. Even if she had not been a Grey Warden, she could never have become the Queen of Ferelden. She was an elf. And a mage, to boot." The Warden looked Bryce directly in the eye. "You must not tell Malcolm that information. Ever. I know you plan on telling him who his natural father is, but you must not tell him about his mother. Give him the same sort of explanation as Alistair got. It doesn't have to be a maid. It can be some sort of soldier if you like. Make something up. But it cannot be the truth. For the truth of his mother is even more dangerous knowledge than the truth of his father."

"I know. I just... I just hate to lie to him. He's a good boy. And I know he is a Theirin, but he is also a Cousland. He is a recognized heir of mine, the papers were drawn up long ago. Maric even witnessed them. If anything were to happen to me, and then in turn to Fergus and any children Fergus might have, Malcolm will inherit Highever." Bryce sighed. "Speaking of heirs, Eamon has been talking with some of the other nobility about Cailan's lack of one. Truthfully, part of the reason I'm keeping Malcolm back from Ostagar is for that very reason, which I think was what you were insinuating before. I know that Alistair is already with the Wardens and already in Ostagar. Cailan is there as well. That's two of Maric's sons, even if Alistair isn't acknowledged as such. If Malcolm were with them and all of them were to fall... there would be civil war, Duncan. We only chased out the Orlesians less than forty years ago. The bloodline of the Rebel Queen must remain on the throne or there will be chaos."

"If the darkspawn overrun us all, civil war will be the least of our worries and chaos will reign, regardless."

"Hearing you talk like that, it makes me happy to know I have another suitable and willing recruit to give you."

"It pleases me, as well, your lordship. I spoke truth when I said I would not want to force the issue on recruiting your son. The Right of Conscription allows us to conscript both princes and criminals, but using that right always brings difficulty with both. We try to avoid it."

Bryce stood. "Well, I suppose you should get to testing Ser Gilmore. I need to go say goodbye to Fergus before he leads the troops to Ostagar."

Duncan frowned as he rose from his chair. "Arl Howe's troops have still not arrived?"

"No. And the darkspawn aren't going to wait while one Arl's army dallies about instead of marching with purpose. I will see you at supper, Duncan."

The warden nodded. "Well met, Teyrn Cousland."

Bryce left the main hall and found his wife brooding in a corner of the courtyard. Her green eyes were distant in her thoughts, her fingertips brushing across her lips as was her habit when she was thinking. He quietly stepped up behind her. "Something wrong, my love?"

"I don't like this at all," she replied, but didn't look at him. "I just have this awful feeling."

"Probably because it's darkspawn we're off to fight instead of a normal army comprised of normal men and women."

"I hope that's what this feeling is." She stayed silent only for a moment. "Malcolm wants to join the Grey Wardens. I'm not surprised. I'd heard Maric mention once that Malcolm's natural mother was a Grey Warden. I don't think he meant to say it out loud, and I don't think he knew anyone was near enough to hear him. Our son is restless, Bryce. I can see it. As much as he is our son, he's still much of his natural father in him. And if his natural mother was a Grey Warden, a warrior such as that... I wonder if we do him a disservice by keeping him here."

Bryce wrapped his arms around his wife's shoulders. "Even if we are doing him a disservice, it does a service to Ferelden. We can't forget that. And yes, his natural mother was a Grey Warden. Duncan just confirmed it for me moments ago. And his adoptive mother is a warrior as well, you've told me enough times, and showed me even more that you are no delicate noblewoman who needs to be coddled. He comes by his restlessness honestly. We had a Rebellion to keep us occupied at his and Fergus's ages. And we can only hope that he and Fergus will not have a Blight to contend with. I'd rather restless in peace than dying in war."

"So it's true that Alistair is a Grey Warden now?"

"Yes. Duncan recruited him from the Chantry six months ago. Right out from under the Grand Cleric's nose as I hear it. Even used the Right of Conscription."

Eleanor moved out of her husband's arms and started toward the practice yard. "And I take it he's at Ostagar as well?"

"Yes," Bryce said, following his wife as she strode toward the sound of clanging swords. "All of Ferelden's Wardens are there now. With Alistair not acknowledged as a Theirin heir, no one can object to him being there alongside his half-brother in the battle. And despite Eamon's pleas to Cailan to designate an official heir before he goes off to this battle, Cailan won't hear anything of it. He claims his father told him that he didn't want his younger half-brother to worry about having to be part of the court, much less King, and that he wasn't going to go against his dead father's wishes."

They arrived at the enclosed sparring ring and leaned against the rough-hewn wooden fence posts that marked its edges. There, they continued speaking and occasionally watched as Ser Gilmore sparred with Duncan. "I suppose no one told Cailan about Malcolm."

"No. Maric was even more adamant that Malcolm be left out of all the royal proceedings and brought up as a normal boy. Especially since no one thinks Malcolm to be anyone's bastard."

"And yet we keep him back, just in case." There was bitterness in her comment at chaining her son to the possibility of a lineage he wasn't supposed to acknowledge, even when he came of age in little over a year.

"We do what we must, Eleanor."

"What if he resents us, Bryce? What if when we tell him tonight, he just leaves?"

"He won't do that. He's our son. You know him. We both do." He said those words to his wife, and yet, Bryce couldn't help but wonder and question just as Eleanor was.

She knew. "You don't believe that."

"I want to believe it," he said, looking over at her. "I have to."

There was a long, quiet lull as neither party wanted to say anything else on the matter, yet couldn't think of anything else to say. Then, Eleanor straightened. "Come, Bryce. Let us go say goodbye to Fergus."

When they got to the doorway of Fergus's chambers, they heard the ongoing conversation between the two brothers. Eleanor signaled for him to wait. She wanted the insight into her sons.

"Did you know there's a Grey Warden in the castle?" Malcolm told his brother. His voice was quiet and even, betraying none of the excitement Bryce knew his son was feeling.

"Really?" a younger voice piped up. "Was he riding a griffon?"

Oriana, Fergus's wife, corrected her son. "Shush, Oren. Griffons only exist in stories now."

Fergus said to Malcolm, "I'd heard that. Did he say why he's come?"

"He says he's recruiting." Again, Malcolm's voice was remarkably controlled, even though everyone else knew just how excited he was, and just how much he himself wanted to join.

"Oh?" asked Fergus, the amusement evident in his tone, coupled with a bit of pride in his younger brother. "If I were a Grey Warden, little brother, I'd have my eye on you. Not that Father would ever allow it."

"No, he wouldn't. So, all eyes off me! Still, I wish I could go with you, even if I wasn't a Grey Warden."

Fergus laughed. "I wish you'd come! It'll be tiring, killing all those darkspawn myself."

Oriana seemed appalled. "Surely your father would not place both his heirs in danger."

"Mother and Father have been fighting about it for days. It's too bad, I could've used you at my side."

Bryce hadn't realized just how observant his children had been of him and Eleanor lately. There had been many arguments about whether they should send one or both boys. And each of them had argued for and against both sides. They still weren't sure if they were arguing with each other or themselves.

"You'll have to do without Father, too, Fergus, at least for a while. He wants you to leave without him," said Malcolm.

Fergus made a disgusted noise. "Then the Arl's men _are_ delayed. You'd think his men were all walking backwards." He sighed. "I suppose I'd better get underway. So many darkspawn to behead, so little time! I'll see you soon, my love."

Bryce took his cue to walk into the room. "I would hope, dear boy, that you planned to wait for us before taking your leave?"

Eleanor took Fergus's hands in her own. "Be well, my son. I will pray for your safety every day you are gone."

"I hope he doesn't need those prayers," said Malcolm, then cocked his head, as if he were thinking. "Either way, he'll need a decent shield. Perhaps we can pray one of those into existence."

Fergus punched him in the shoulder.

Oriana ignored the goings-on between the two brothers and prayed out loud, "The Maker sustain and preserve us all. Watch over our sons, husbands, and fathers and bring them safely back to us."

"And bring us some ale and wenches while you're at it!" said Fergus. At Oriana's glare, he added, "Um, for the men, of course."

Oriana scolded him anyway. "Fergus! You would say this in front of your mother?"

"What's a wench?" Oren asked. "Is that what you pull on to get the bucket out of the well?"

Bryce noticed the mischievous glint in Malcolm's eyes and jumped in with an answer before Malcolm managed to get himself in a great deal of trouble. "A wench is a woman that pours ale in a tavern, Oren." Then he couldn't help himself. "Or... a woman who drinks a lot of ale."

Malcolm burst out laughing.

"Bryce! Maker's breath, I swear it's like living with a pack of small boys," said Eleanor, fixing a glare on each son, and then her husband in turn.

Courageously ignoring the glare, Fergus wrapped his mother in a hug. "Oh, I'll miss you, Mother dear." He let go of his mother and turned to Malcolm. "You'll take care of her, brother, won't you?"

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Mother can handle her own affairs, you know. She always has."

"That's true. They should be sending her, not me. She would scold those darkspawn back into the Deep Roads."

Eleanor crossed her arms. "I'm glad you lot find this so funny."

"Enough, enough," Bryce said. "Let's get down to supper before the soldiers eat everything Nan has managed to cook for us all. And, Pup, I'd like to see you in my study right after supper."

After giving Bryce a curious look, Malcolm nodded.

**Malcolm **

Malcolm waited in his father's study for over an hour, but Bryce never showed up. He figured the teyrn must've gotten tangled up with talks with Arl Howe. A stroke of luck in his favor that he'd escaped a lecture after all. He'd have to thank Howe for that tomorrow. Giving up on waiting in favor of going to sleep—all of Howe's protocols during supper had made it run quite late in the first place—Malcolm went to his room. He prepped his leathers for sparring with Gilmore first thing in the morning as Gunnar snuffled around the room, looking for a long-hidden treat. After a jaw-cracking yawn, Malcolm gave up on cleaning his armor and put it away on its stand. Then he crawled into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

Some time later, Gunnar's insistent barking woke him up. The warhound's ears lay flat against his head, and his teeth bared at the door as he growled and barked. The thought crossed his mind that it might be more of those giant rats and that made Malcolm leap out of bed and throw on his leathers before he could be accosted by them while wearing only his smallclothes.

In retrospect, that probably saved his life.

Even as he started to ask Gunnar what he was barking at, the door burst open and one of the servants came flying in. "My lord! Help me! The castle is under attack!" But Malcolm wasn't given time to help him as an arrowhead, then two, appeared to spring out of the servant's chest, and the man was dead before he fell face-first to the ground. Malcolm quickly snatched up his sword and shield from the weapon stand and left his room to join the fray outside. Four men were dead by the time the hallway outside his room was quiet. Two of the dead men had shields bearing the Howe heraldry.

The door to the next set of rooms swung open and his mother ran in. "Darling! I heard fighting outside and I feared the worst. Are you hurt?"

Malcolm checked to make sure his mother was okay. She didn't have a scratch on her. Physically, at least. "I'm fine. What's going on?"

Her fingers plied at the bow she held in her left hand. "A scream woke me up. There were men in the hall, so I barred the door. Did you see their shields? Those are Howe's men! Why would they attack us?"

Malcolm frowned and unease continued to roil about in his gut. "I don't know, but we need to get out of here."

"Have you seen your father? He never came to bed."

He glanced back at his father's study. "No. I waited for him for an hour, but he never came up here. I eventually just gave up and went to bed, figuring that he stayed up with Arl Howe." He started. "I _hope_ he wasn't with Arl Howe."

"We must find him!"

Malcolm glanced pointedly at his mother's bow. "I take it you're coming with me?"

She scoffed. "I am no Orlesian wallflower. Give me a weapon and I'll use it!" The teyrna nocked an arrow to illustrate. "Now let's go." Then she paused. "Wait. There are two things we need to keep from Howe. The Cousland sword and the Highever shield. Your father keeps them in a chest in his office. I have the key."

Malcolm left his practice sword and shield behind. In their place, he secured the Highever shield on his left arm and hefted the finely balanced Cousland sword in his right hand. He hoped that Howe would get what was coming to him from this sword. And he hoped it would be soon.

They dispatched more of Howe's soldiers in the next set of rooms. Malcolm guessed they must have followed his mother up, or just have decided that this floor was the next to attack. But once those men were dead, the floor was unnaturally silent. Oren and Oriana should've been woken up by the attack by now. Oren should be out and asking why his uncle was carrying a sword. Panic laced through Malcolm's veins for the first time and he sprinted to the doorway of his brother's rooms. When he saw what lay inside, he went numb. His sister-in-law and nephew were splayed on the stone floor, blood, their own blood, puddled under them. Howe's men had killed a five-year-old boy and an innocent woman.

"No!" he heard his mother shout from the doorway. "My little Oren! What manner of fiend slaughters innocents?"

An image of Rendon Howe flashed before Malcolm's eyes. The day before, if he'd been posed the same question, the answer would have been darkspawn. But the darkspawn were not alone in the ability to commit atrocities.

"Why would they do this?" Malcolm whispered.

"Howe isn't even taking hostages," Eleanor said. "He means to kill all of us."

"No one would be alive to tell the truth of what happened. He could claim anything. "

Eleanor closed her eyes. "Let's go. I don't want to see this."

They fought their way through the castle towards the main hall with its main gates to the courtyard. They followed the sound of Ser Gilmore's voice as he ordered soldiers to hold the gates closed. "Keep those bastards out as long as you can!"

Then he noticed Malcolm and Eleanor. "My ladyship! My lord! You're both alive! I was certain Howe's men had gotten through."

"That treacherous bastard," Malcolm muttered. Thumps sounded from the other side of the gates as six soldiers desperately held them shut. The air around them held little fear and a lot of anger.

Gilmore continued, "When I realized what was happening, it was all I could do shut the gates. But they won't keep Howe's men out long. If you've got another way out of the castle, use it quickly."

"We need to find my father," said Malcolm.

"When I last saw the teyrn, he'd been badly wounded," replied Gilmore. "I urged him not to go but he was determined to find you. He went towards the kitchen. I believe he thought to find you at the servants' exit in the larder."

Eleanor reached out, cupped Gilmore's cheeks, and kissed his forehead. A thank you. She knew that he was going to stay and fight until Howe's men overwhelmed him. "Bless you, Ser Gilmore. Maker watch over you."

The knight put a helm on his head. "Maker watch over us all."

Malcolm and Eleanor had only one clump of men to fight as they went towards the kitchens. His anger had no compunction against consorting with his dark humor. Two Howe soldiers had teamed up on one of the Highever knights. Malcolm crept up behind them and said, "Hello!" in a happy tone, right before bashing one of them in the face with the shield, followed by a thrust into the gut of the other with his sword. Wordlessly, he wiped the blood off his sword on his leathers as the Highever knight thanked him for his assistance. Malcolm nodded, and then went into the kitchens. He briefly took in the body of Nan and two servants on the floor—of course she would still be here this late, she had much to prepare for with all these soldiers and wouldn't have been able to go home—as he trudged toward the larder. "Gunnar," he said, and pointed to a spot outside the door. "Guard." Then Malcolm went inside.

His father was on the floor, arms at his side, trying to hold together a gaping wound. Blood had already pooled underneath him. Malcolm could only stare.

His mother burst in after him and dropped to Bryce's side. "Maker's blood, what's happening? You're bleeding!"

Pain clouded in the teyrn's eyes. "Howe's men... found me first. Almost did me in right there."

"Saved me from a lecture," Malcolm said before he realized he'd even thought it. "We need to get you out of her, Father, so you can lecture me later. I mean, your lectures are bad, but I'd rather suffer them than..."

"I wasn't going to lecture you. And I can't leave. I won't survive the standing, I think."

Malcolm set his jaw. "Then we will stay and defend you."

"Once Howe's men break through the gate, they will find us," said Eleanor. "We have to go, all of us. We can't stay here."

"Someone must reach Fergus—" Bryce gasped in pain as his fingers sought to hold the wound closed. "And tell him what has happened."

Malcolm knew what his father wasn't saying. He knew his father intended on dying right here and wanted someone else to relay the message. A message that might be too late. Fear tickled the back of Malcolm's neck. "Howe must have something planned for him, too."

"Bryce, no! The servants' passage is right here! We can flee together, find you healing magic!" protested his mother.

"The castle is surrounded," the teyrn said. "I cannot make it."

Footsteps sounded in the doorway and Malcolm turned to see Duncan walk in, sheathing his longsword on his back. "I'm afraid the teyrn is correct. Howe's men have not yet discovered this exit, but they surrounded the castle. Getting past will be difficult."

Malcolm stared at him.

"Duncan? You're still here?" Eleanor asked.

"Yes, your ladyship. The teyrn and I tried to reach you sooner." He knelt, bringing himself eye level with the others in the room.

"My younger son helped me get here, Maker be praised."

Malcolm knew that if she'd had to, his mother could've made it on her own. She was tough.

"I am not surprised," Duncan said.

"Thank you for saving my father," Malcolm said quietly.

Duncan turned toward him, his mouth drawing into a sad frown. "I fear your thanks are premature. I doubt I have saved him."

The teyrna looked towards the doorway and the room beyond, where the cries of battle were getting louder. "Whatever is to be done now, it must be quick! They are coming!"

Bryce spoke, yet even now his voice was growing weaker as his wound continued to draw the life out of him. "Duncan, you are under no obligation to me, but I beg you.. take Eleanor and Malcolm to safety."

"I will, your lordship, but..."

_But what? _Malcolm wondered. Duncan was a kind, honorable man. He couldn't see him asking for money or something like that. What catch would there be?

"I fear I must ask for something in return."

"Anything," said Bryce.

Duncan took a deep breath. "What is happening here pales in comparison to the evil now loose in this world. I came to your castle seeking a recruit. The darkspawn threat demands that I leave with one."

"You realize what you are asking," the teyrn said. "I understand, but would they?"

"They would understand, Teyrn Cousland. I give my word."

Bryce nodded. "So be it."

Malcolm realized they were talking about him. "No!"

But Duncan and Bryce continued on as if Malcolm hadn't spoken. "I will take the teyrna and your son to Ostagar to tell Fergus and the king what happened. Then, your son joins the Grey Wardens."

"So long as justice comes to Howe, I agree," said Bryce.

Duncan turned to Malcolm. "Then I offer you a place within the Grey Wardens. Fight with us."

Malcolm couldn't grasp how something he'd wanted to badly just hours ago had become something he wanted nothing of. This wasn't how he wanted to join. It was supposed to be a choice. "I refuse," he said, surprising himself and the other three people in the tiny room.

"Howe thinks to use the chaos to advance himself," Bryce said as he slumped over onto the floor, unable to hold himself in a sitting position any longer. "Make him wrong, Pup. See that justice is done. Our family always does our duty first. The darkspawn must be defeated. You must go, for your own sake, and for Ferelden's."

That speech from the same man who had, just hours earlier, categorically refused to let him voluntarily join the Wardens. Malcolm couldn't understand and it made him not want to have any part in it. "No. I won't do it."

Duncan's eyes grew sad, and Malcolm wondered if he would just escape by himself, leaving him and his mother to die. No, that wouldn't be like the man he'd heard of, the man people respected. "Then I have no choice," he said. His voice became as hard as the stone floor beneath them. "I hereby invoke the Right of Conscription and recruit you into the Grey Wardens despite your objection." The emphasis on the despite was quite clear.

Malcolm opened his mouth for a ready, yelling protest, and then realized it didn't matter. There was nothing he could do. The Right of Conscription was ironclad. No one could override it, Kings and Grand Clerics included. His fate had been determined and he had no say in it. He looked helplessly at his father.

Bryce grimaced, and it wasn't because of the wound in his abdomen. "I'm sorry, Pup, but it's better this way."

It certainly didn't feel like it.

"We must leave quickly, then," said Duncan.

Eleanor looked at her husband. "Bryce, are you sure?"

"Our son will not die of Howe's treachery. He will live and make his mark upon the world. He will live so that there will not be chaos."

The teyrna turned to her son. "Darling, go with Duncan. You have a better chance to escape without me."

"That's not true," Malcolm said.

Eleanor opened her mouth to reply to his comment, but Bryce interrupted by calling to his wife. "Eleanor."

She glanced back at the teyrn. "Hush, Bryce. I'll kill every bastard that comes through that door to buy them time. But I won't abandon you." The teyrna took out a small bag of coin and handed it to her son. "Take this. You'll need it."

Malcolm scanned the room, trying to find another solution than his parents dying in order to allow him to escape the castle. "We can find another way. We can fight."

"So we all die?" asked Eleanor. "No. Your place is with the Grey Wardens. Mine is with your father. At his side, to death and beyond."

Duncan started to leave the room as the soldiers reached the doors to the kitchens and began to bash through the locks.

"You are our son," Bryce said, as Duncan grabbed onto the back of Malcolm's leathers and practically dragged him away. "We have always loved you as our own, and always will. Never forget that."

Finally, Duncan's pull on his leathers was too strong, and Malcolm stumbled away as his parents prepared to die. His mother's prayer followed him through the tunnel.

"Maker, my enemies are abundant. Many are those who rise up against me. But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me. So let it be."

Yelling followed the prayer, yelling so far away that it sounded like whispers. Then a silence followed the whispers, a silence so loud it was like a shout.


	3. Chapter 3

"All things in this world are finite.

What one man gains, another has lost.

Those who steal from their brothers and sisters

Do harm to their livelihood and their peace of mind.

Our Maker sees this with a heavy heart."

—_Canticle of Transfigurations 1:5_

**3**

**Duncan**

They traveled south on the North Road toward Lake Calenhad, heading for its crossroads with the Imperial Highway on the western side of the lake. Duncan had to stop at Redcliffe Castle to check on the status of Arl Eamon's troops for the King before they finished their journey to Ostagar. For the first three days, Malcolm didn't say a word to Duncan. They'd managed to free two horses from Highever's stables the night of the attack in order to get away faster. The horses allowed them to make good time toward Redcliffe.

Duncan knew full well that the young man was angry. He didn't blame him—in the boy's place, he would be angry as well. He'd conscripted him and it had been a conscription of the worst kind—against the will of the person recruited rather than the people you conscripted him from. And he knew exactly how the lad felt—he'd been conscripted against his will as well, many years ago. Part of him did feel badly about it. His actions had turned the young man's enthusiasm about the prospect of joining the Grey Wardens into a resentment at being forced to join the Grey Wardens. Had there not been a Blight, Duncan never would have done what he did.

But in war, there was sacrifice. He had sacrificed some of his honor in order to secure another good fighter to battle the darkspawn. Malcolm had sacrificed his freedom of choice. Or succumbed to fate. To that end, Duncan wasn't sure which it was. The boy's natural mother had been a Grey Warden. She had been a friend of Duncan's. She, of all people, would have understood Duncan's actions. But even then, it didn't fully excuse them. So he accepted the boy's furious silence, hoping that one day he would come around. In all his experience, even the forced recruits eventually accepted their place as a Grey Warden, warmed to the brotherhood, and fully believed in their cause against the darkspawn. His own anger had disappeared quickly, but it took him over a year to fully acclimate and accept being part of the Grey Wardens. It had been this boy's father who had helped him with that process. Duncan did not fail to see the irony.

They arrived at the crossroads of the North Road and the Imperial Highway on the north end of Lake Calenhad in the early afternoon of the third day. Duncan swung his horse around and went south onto the Imperial Highway. It took him less than a minute to realize that Malcolm's horse wasn't following. He turned his horse around to look.

Malcolm kept his horse at a halt and looked in puzzlement at the direction Duncan had taken. He watched Duncan closely when the older man turned, saying nothing for several more minutes. Finally, he said evenly, "It's faster to stay on the North Road if you're trying to get to the Korcari Wilds."

"I know." Duncan rested his hands atop the pommel of his saddle."But we must stop at Redcliffe first to determine their readiness and their arrival time at Ostagar so that we can inform the King."

Malcolm nodded. Then he flicked the reins on his horse, brought the mare to a trot, and started down the road Duncan had been on before he'd turned to find his young charge.

Knowing the boy needed time, Duncan resisted the urge to sigh. After that single statement, Malcolm went back to his sullen silence. At sunset, a cold rain began to fall. That night, after they'd pitched camp, Malcolm tried to bolt for the first time, choosing to run on foot. Duncan anticipated it, and apparently so did the mabari, because he ran with them. Duncan gave chase for ten minutes with the boy keeping just out of arm's reach, the chase only ending when Malcolm skidded to a stop at the top of a cliff overlooking Lake Calenhad. Duncan slowed to a walk.

Malcolm turned around to face him. His eyes were wide, frightened, almost the look of a cornered animal. He looked at Duncan, and then turned his head to look behind him, as if judging the height of the drop to the lake.

Duncan pulled to a halt a few feet in front of the boy. "You wouldn't survive the fall."

His head whipped back around. "No?"

"No."

"You're a lot faster than you look."

"That's what the cutpurses I catch tell me, too."

"Do they end up Grey Wardens?"

"The good ones."

Twice, Malcolm opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then closed it.

Duncan sighed. "Come on. It's late and we need sleep. We have to get back on the road at daybreak tomorrow."

Malcolm looked at him as if he'd grown three heads and sprouted a tail.

"You aren't the first conscripted recruit I've had who was angry and decided to try and run. Usually, they've regretted it and not tried it again after they got caught. I'm willing to bet a decent night's sleep that you've regretted it and don't plan on doing so again."

"I don't plan on it again, no," Malcolm said.

"Good enough for me, then. But if I have to carry you kicking and screaming to Ostagar, I will. It's best not to test that. Let's go." Duncan turned and started off towards the campsite they'd left a good distance back.

After a few moments, Malcolm wordlessly followed. Duncan, unsure if it was a test of Malcolm's to see how fast he'd have to be to get away, kept a closer eye on the young man, despite what Malcolm had told him. Planning on running was one thing, but young men tended to be impulsive, and with angry as the boy was, if he was presented the moment where he stood a decent chance of escaping, odds were that he'd take it. He was fairly certain the boy wouldn't try to leave again, even once in Redcliffe, but he didn't want to take any chances. He kept in mind just how many times he had tried to run from the Grey Wardens after his own conscription—and resolved to keep a _much_ closer eye on the boy.

On his part, Malcolm returned to his silence, but stayed close. The cold snap that came with the rain stayed and Duncan was reminded of the first trip he'd ever had to Ferelden. Back then, he'd thought this land the coldest he'd ever met, and thought he would never be truly warm ever again. He'd revised his opinion the year after once he'd been summoned to Weisshaupt. The Anderfels had been so cold that Duncan had desperately wished to be back in Ferelden. His companion at the time, Fiona, had found that wish highly amusing, and had teased him about it for months. Still, cold was cold, and both Duncan and Malcolm kept their cloaks wrapped closely, Duncan with his hood down, but Malcolm with his hood up. Duncan knew that the boy kept the hood up more to hide his eyes than to keep out the cold, but he understood and refrained from comment.

As they drew within sight of Redcliffe Castle, Duncan said, "You are not to leave my side. Understood?"

Malcolm glanced at him, and then nodded, his face showing that he clearly understood the reason behind the admonition. They slowly made their way up the last hill to the castle's gate. During their approach, Duncan looked for signs of the Arl's army, and saw little. He held in a sigh. The Arl would be late to Ostagar, yet he knew the delay would not persuade Cailan to wait any longer. Once inside the keep, the Arl's grooms took their horses to be fed, watered, and stabled for them. Another knight went in ahead to notify Arl Eamon that Duncan had arrived. They were led into the Main Hall, Duncan grateful for the warmth the crackling fire generated in the room. Malcolm made as if he were going to keep his hood up even when inside, but removed it at the warning glance from Duncan. He expected his recruits, unwilling or not, to at least be civil to the people who weren't responsible for his conscription. As for himself, he would accept the insolent behavior directed towards him. For a time.

"Duncan! Welcome to Redcliffe Castle," Arl Eamon said enthusiastically on seeing him, standing to offer a handshake. "I didn't expect you to be here. I thought you would be at Ostagar already."

Duncan shook the Arl's hand. "It is an honor to be welcomed, Arl Eamon. I was recruiting in Highever, and the King asked me to stop here on my way back. We can speak of the details of that later." He knew they would be discussing the King's actions frankly, and while Duncan, the Commander of the Grey, and Arl Eamon, the King's uncle, could be privy to engage in such talk, the rest of the people in the hall were not.

"Ah, I see," said Eamon. "Then we shall retire to my study. I can have something brought up from the kitchens." He glanced back. "And what about your young recruit? Would he like some food from there as well? He could just go straight down there if he would like."

Duncan turned to the boy as they walked. Malcolm's look was plaintive—the look of any young man when being offered hot food after days on the trail. "I'll go straight there and come straight back," Malcolm said. "I promise."

Duncan resisted the urge to smile. "You have my permission," he said. "And please make sure someone takes Gunnar to the kennels."

Eamon had one of his servants show Malcolm the way to the kitchens and had another lead the mabari to the kennels for a meal of his own. Once the boy and servant had disappeared down the hallway, Eamon looked at Duncan. "Conscript?"

"Unfortunately. And, if you could, please make sure to let the guards know he isn't to leave the castle."

That raised an eyebrow. Eamon sent a message along with the next servant they came across, but he didn't ask for details until they were seated in his study, away from the many ears that could be found within castle walls. "That boy looks enough like Alistair to tell me that you've got Malcolm Cousland." The Arl settled into his chair behind the desk and fixed a serious look on Duncan. "You conscripted him? I can't imagine Bryce is pleased at all. If Maric—"

Duncan cut him off. "Teyrn Cousland is dead."

The anger drained from Eamon's face and he leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "What? Tell me what's happened, Duncan."

He repeated the story of Arl Howe's attack on Castle Cousland, the demise of the Teyrn and Teyrna, and Malcolm's conscription.

Eamon's anger shifted from Duncan to Arl Howe. "This is... I can't believe Howe would... well, yes I can believe that. But in the face of a Blight? I certainly can't have my forces go up there, we need them at Ostagar, the Blight is more important, but Howe can't be allowed to get away with this. My forces can be at Ostagar within a week. But you will be there first. You must tell Cailan."

"I plan to."

"I see why you recruited young Malcolm, now, and I agree, for the most part. But you had to conscript him? He wouldn't just agree? The last time I talked with Bryce, Malcolm had already been asking him if he could join were he accepted and Bryce was getting weary of telling him no. Not that he'd have changed his mind, though. "

Duncan allowed himself to sigh. "He wasn't amenable to it at the time. The boy thought I had gotten Teyrn Cousland to think I would only help his son out of the castle if he agreed to join the Grey Wardens. Which wasn't true, and Teyrn Cousland knew I would help whether he agreed or not. But it was important for Malcolm to see why he had to join. Looking back, I went about it badly, I think, and turned Malcolm against joining rather than for it. In the end, he forced my hand be saying no a few times. Howe's men were breaking into the kitchens and were ran out of time. So, I had to invoke the Right of Conscription."

Eamon sat back. "I take it he isn't happy."

"He's spoken five sentences to me in the past week. Six, actually, if you count what he said ten minutes ago. He tried to run once, but he didn't go very far." He smiled a little. "A cliff got in the way. That said, I mostly doubt he'll try to run again, but I am taking precautions to make sure he doesn't put himself in a bad position. I know he'll come around—the part of him that wanted to be a Grey Warden is still very strong—but he has to get over being angry first. And there's no telling how long that will take."

"Theirin anger has a long memory," Eamon said. "Alistair didn't speak to me for years after he went to the Chantry."

Duncan frowned. "You aren't making me feel any better. We don't have years. We have only days."

"I take it that you and Malcolm will be departing tomorrow morning?"

"By sunrise. We need to make the best time we can for Ostagar. The horde is growing ever closer. Cailan thinks—"

Duncan's words were cut off by the study's doors opening without even so much as a knock. A very upset woman stormed in. After she shut the door behind her, her hands clutched in tight fists are her sides. "Eamon, what is Alistair doing here?"

The arl sat up straight. "What? Isolde, Alistair isn't here. He's in Ostagar, with the rest of the Grey Wardens."

"I just saw him in the kitchens."

Duncan, had he been twenty years younger, would have slouched in the chair and hidden his face in his hand. He should have remembered that in Eamon's castle, a face resembling Alistair's or Cailan's would be recognized in some way and cause trouble. "Lady Isolde," he said softly, "who you saw wasn't Alistair. Arl Eamon tells the truth. The boy you saw is Malcolm Cousland. He's one of my recruits."

"Oh," she said, sitting down in a chair across the room from Duncan. "But he looks so much like..." as her thoughts continued, her hand went to her mouth and she flushed. "Oh. I see now. Oh no."

"Isolde?" asked Eamon.

She turned to her husband. "Alistair and this Malcolm, they have the same father?"

Eamon sighed. "Yes. King Maric. The Couslands raised Malcolm as their own. He doesn't know. " He frowned and glanced over at Duncan. "Does he?"

Duncan shook his head. "No. Arl Howe chose the same evening to attack the Couslands that they had chosen to tell Malcolm, so they never got to tell him. I assume it's my responsibility now. I'm just waiting until he's at least a little less angry with me." Or until right before they arrived at Ostagar, whichever came first.

"I called him Alistair and he kept denying it," said Isolde. "So I told him to leave the castle and that he could come back when he could at least tell the arlessa the truth. I am—"

Duncan was out of his chair and out the door before he heard anything else the arlessa said. If Eamon's message hadn't gotten to the guards yet, the young man would be out of the castle, even more angry and hurt, and most likely run. And that would be a horrible situation. He did _not_ want to have to declare the lad a deserter. Not when within the past week Malcolm had watched his entire family and household murdered and then be conscripted into the Grey Wardens against his will. Duncan knew the boy had a good heart in the right place and would serve the Wardens well, given time. Isolde may have taken that time away from him.

In less than a minute, Duncan had found the front doors of the castle and burst through them out into the cold, rainy night. He stopped at the top of the stairs and peered into the shadows, listening intently, scanning carefully. There was no sign of Malcolm, only the footsteps and occasional cough from a patrolling guard along the top of the castle's outside walls. Duncan moved through the gate to see what he could find out on the countryside near the castle. As soon as he stepped through, someone said, "I'm right here."

Duncan stopped and looked to his left for the source of the voice.

Malcolm sat at the base of the castle's outer wall, huddled in his grey, woolen cloak and looking absolutely miserable. "You didn't run. You had the perfect opportunity. Were I you, I believe I would have taken it."

"I know. But I said I wouldn't," the boy replied, getting to his feet. "Wait. You'd run? Even now?"

Duncan smiled. "No, not now. I'm content with my life as it is. But I was recruited as you were—against my wishes. I eventually lost count of how many times I ran away. But they always caught me, and they always brought me back. No matter how fast you might be, there is always a Warden who is faster. It took me a long time to figure that out. Perhaps you will turn out to be smarter than I was. Come on. Let's go back inside."

Malcolm's eyebrows had been raising in disbelief the entire time Duncan had talked. Now one if his eyebrows raised even higher. "I'm allowed back in?"

"You never should have been told to leave. The arlessa made a mistake." Duncan felt his own anger at the arlessa growing. He'd held some measure of anger for the woman ever since she'd insisted that Eamon send Alistair to the Chantry. And now to see just how she'd treat Alistair if he even visited Arl Eamon... it astounded him. Apparently some of the stereotypical Orlesian had never left the woman in all the years she'd spent in Ferelden. From his childhood on the streets of Val Royeaux, he knew that sort of behavior when he saw it. As Duncan strode back into the castle, Malcolm trailed quietly behind him.

Inside, they found Eamon waiting in the foyer and Isolde nowhere to be seen. "I was going to summon my guards and knights to help search for him," he said as soon as the doors closed behind them.

"He waited just outside your gate," Duncan replied. "Could we go back to your study, where there's a fire? He's more than a little cold and seems more than a little unwilling to admit it."

"Yes, yes. Follow me." Eamon led the pair back to his study, apologizing for his wife's behavior all the while. Malcolm said nothing, only continued shivering. Once they got to the study, the arl pulled up a seat next to the fire and practically forced Malcolm to sit in it.

Once seated, Malcolm put his hood down. The tips of his ears were red with cold.

Eamon raised an eyebrow. "No wonder she mistook you for Alistair. You don't look exactly like him, but Isolde hasn't seen Alistair since he was a boy. You could certainly pass for what that boy would've grown up to look like."

This time, Duncan did put his hand over his face in exasperation. It seemed the arl had forgotten what he'd told him not even thirty minutes before.

Malcolm frowned. "Arl Eamon, who is Alistair, and what, in the name of the Maker, did he _do_?"

Eamon glanced over at Duncan, as if he wanted Duncan to handle it. Duncan dropped his hand from his eyes and gave Eamon a hard look. A look that told Eamon that since he had brought it up, he could handle it himself.

The arl shifted in his chair, as if he were trying to find a comfortable position, and couldn't. He sat back and started to explain. "Alistair had the misfortune of being King Maric's bastard son. I fostered him here as a boy. Arlessa Isolde took exception to him because she believed the rumors that Alistair was my own son. I didn't pay any attention to the rumors, but the Arlessa was never so confident. As soon as she was able, she had Alistair sent to the Chantry for templar training so that he would no longer live at the castle. In your situation, it worked out differently. Your parents didn't have to foster you, they were able to raise you as their own. Teyrna Cousland had much more confidence in herself than Arlessa Isolde."

Malcolm sat bolt upright in his chair. "What? What you just said makes no sense. Of course my parents raised me as their own. They were my parents."

Duncan put his head in his hands. He wondered if Eamon had botched it this badly with Alistair, as well. That could explain a lot.

"They were your parents, Malcolm, but not your natural parents. Your mother loved you, that I'm sure of, but she was not the woman who gave birth to you. And Bryce, thought he loved you as a son, was not the man who fathered you."

Malcolm went quiet. After a few moments, Duncan moved his hands and looked over at the boy. His brow was furrowed in thought, his eyes pointed towards the fire, but they gazed somewhere far, far beyond it. He was putting it together, Duncan knew. Teyrn Cousland had started the process with some of the last words he'd said to Malcolm. And those words had stuck with Malcolm, most likely fueling a bit of his anger. Finally, the lad looked away from the fire and back toward Eamon. "Who were my natural parents?"

Eamon sighed. "Your natural mother was a warrior from the Anderfels that your father met while traveling to Weisshaupt. She brought you to your father, and then disappeared. A few years after that, we got word that she had died not even a year after having you."

Malcolm frowned. "My father was a Grey Warden?"

"No," said Eamon. "Your father was King Maric. That's why you look so much like Alistair. He's your brother by blood."

"You're having me on," Malcolm said. "Come on, you can tell me the truth. I won't get mad. I'm supposed to just believe you when you say my natural father was King Maric? Any resemblance to this Alistair could be entirely coincidental."

Eamon stared at Malcolm for a moment, as if he had no idea how to address the boy's objection. Then he stood up. "Come with me," he told Malcolm.

"What? Why? I'm not even supposed to leave Duncan's side."

The arl looked at Duncan.

Duncan decided to help a little and got to his feet, indicating that he would go as well. He _was_ wondering what Eamon was up to. Short of putting Malcolm face-to-face with Maric, they didn't have much on proof, at least to the boy. Anyone who had known Maric would knew immediately on seeing Malcolm—or Alistair—exactly who their father was. Their resemblance to the dead king was too uncanny to be coincidental. Malcolm sighed loudly and followed the other two men out the door and into the hallway. They went up to the second floor and then into a different study. Eamon motioned towards a painting on the wall.

It was Maric. A young Maric. Duncan supposed it must've been painted soon after the end of the Rebellion. Maric had been somewhat older when Duncan had first met him.

As soon as Malcolm saw it, his face went slack.

Eamon then pointed out another portrait in the room—his nephew Cailan, the current king, and King Maric's one legitimate son. A person to whom Malcolm also bore a strong family resemblance.

Malcolm found the nearest chair and sat down hard. "Does King Cailan know about me?"

"No," Eamon answered. "He only knows about Alistair, his other half-brother."

"Did King Maric get around or something? He had _two_ bastard sons?"

For some reason, Duncan's indignance at the almost-insult of two of his good friends got the better of him. "No, he did not get around. Alistair was born three years after Queen Rowan died. You were born two years after that. It is my understanding that he loved your and Alistair's mother quite deeply. Had he the choice, he would have married her. However, that was never an option for him."

Malcolm's gaze shifted to Duncan. "My mother and Alistair's mother? The same woman?"

Duncan recognized his mistake. There was no going back on that now. He was tired and had reacted instinctively, but had no idea what to say now.

Eamon graciously stepped in to help. "Yes, they are. But Alistair does not know that. He thinks his mother was as scullery maid who had been in my service, one who died giving birth to him. And you are not to tell him otherwise." Duncan shot the arl a grateful look. Apparently there was still more of his youth left in him than he'd thought. At least where his missing friend Fiona and his dead friend Maric was concerned, anyway.

Malcolm turned and fixed an accusing glare on Duncan. "You knew about this?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"It wasn't my place."

The flare of anger returned to Malcolm's eyes and Duncan felt like bashing his head on a wall. At this rate, the boy would be angry with him for a very, very long time. Eamon suggested they retire for the night and called for a servant to show Malcolm to his room before he could object. The anger apparent in Malcolm wouldn't let the conversation improve in its tone. He needed time to assimilate what he'd been told. He and Eamon talked battle strategy for another hour until Duncan, too, retired for the night.

They left at dawn the next day. Malcolm went back to his silence. He spoke only necessary things with Arl Eamon, maintaining the illusion of politeness. To Duncan, he said nothing. Duncan was beginning to wonder if it was that anger that helped the young man hold himself together. With all of the loss he'd experienced, with the things that he'd learned about his past, and with being involuntarily recruited into the Grey Wardens, it was amazing that he hadn't cracked in the slightest. But that anger seethed close to the surface, so close that it was almost palpable. Malcolm's hold on it wouldn't last long.

They made excellent time and within three days had reached the end of the Imperial Highway. Ostagar was only a half-day's ride away, but night was falling. They'd reached the edge Korcari Wilds and Duncan had no desire to attempt night travel in the area. He called a halt and they quickly pitched their tents and started a small fire. Duncan took the time he had by the fire to hone his sword and dagger, as he hadn't tended to them closely in a while.

"I thought I was going to get lectured," Malcolm said suddenly.

Duncan looked up from his sword. "Pardon?"

Malcolm's eyes moved up from the fire to look across it, toward Duncan. "The night of the attack, my father told me he'd wanted to talk to me in his study, I think with my mother, after supper. But supper had run late, and then afterward, he never showed up. I was actually relieved, because I hadn't been looking forward to being lectured."

"Lectured for what?"

Malcolm sighed. "I somehow managed to accuse Arl Howe of liking dead birds as gifts. I'm still not sure how it happened and I'm certain I thought it was amusing at the time. Actually, even now it's still slightly amusing. The look on his face was fantastic."

Duncan was suddenly and distinctly reminded of Alistair. He resisted a sigh of his own. It seemed both boys had inherited Maric's sense of humor and its often ill-timing. Thank the Maker that Cailan had not inherited that particular personality trait. For that alone, all of Ferelden should have been grateful. He was certain Loghain was. After all, the king's best friend had often been a target of that humor.

"And now I realize two things. He was probably going to tell me what Arl Eamon did a few days ago. And that... and... he never showed up because Howe's men had already gotten to him. Or were getting to him. Or that Howe was holding him up so that his men _could_ get to him. And there I was, all relieved that he wasn't there."

"I am sorry," Duncan said so quietly that it was barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

"If you had asked me to join the Grey Wardens that afternoon," Malcolm said as quietly as Duncan had spoken, "I would have, you know. Gladly." He paused. "Voluntarily."

"I know."

Malcolm's eyes returned to the flames and he said nothing more.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

**Malcolm**

Malcolm followed Duncan as they slowly made their way into the old fort at Ostagar. As they walked, Duncan gave him a short rundown of the situation. "The Tevinter Imperium built Ostagar long ago to prevent Wilders from invading the northern lowlands. It's fitting we make our stand here, even if we face a different foe within the forest. The King's forces have clashed with the darkspawn several times, but here is where the bulk of the darkspawn horde will show itself. There are only a few Grey Wardens in Ferelden at the moment, but all of us are here. You must understand, this Blight must be stopped, here and now. If it spreads to the north, Ferelden will fall."

Hearing that, Malcolm didn't feel reassured about their 'd no sooner than stepped into the camp's main entrance when they were greeted by the King. When Malcolm saw the King for the first time, he realized there was no denying it. What Eamon had told him, and what Duncan had confirmed, was entirely true.

"Ho, there, Duncan!" Cailan said, shaking Duncan's hand. Three royal guards glowered behind him, a counterpoint to the large grin on Cailan's face.

"King Cailan," said Duncan, "I didn't expect—"

"A royal welcome?" Cailan finished for him. "I was beginning to worry that you'd miss all the fun."

"Not if I could help it, your Majesty," Duncan replied, but sounding less than enthused.

Cailan's blue eyes lit up anyway. If Malcolm wasn't mistaken, Cailan had a case of hero worship of Duncan and the Grey Wardens. He wondered if Cailan would feel the same way if he was conscripted into the order. "Then I'll have the mighty Duncan at my side in the battle after all. Glorious!" Then Cailan noticed Malcolm standing nearby. "The other Wardens told me that you've found a promising new recruit. I take it this is he?"

Duncan motioned his arm toward Malcolm. "Allow me to introduce you, your Majesty."

"No need, Duncan." He turned to Malcolm. "You are Bryce's youngest, are you not? I don't think we've ever actually met."

No, no they had not and he could now see exactly why. "Yes," he answered. "My name is Malcolm."

Cailan nodded. "Your brother has already arrived with Highever's men, but we are awaiting your father."

With the newness and awkwardness of the situation, Malcolm's tact fled him. "Oh, I think you'll be waiting for some time yet."

"What?" said Cailan, glancing at Duncan. "Nothing's happened to Bryce, I hope. Has he fallen ill?"

"Teyrn Cousland and his wife are dead, your Majesty. Arl Howe has shown himself a traitor and overtaken Highever castle. Had we not escaped, he would have killed us all and told you any story he wished."

The smile dropped from Cailan's face and it became deadly serious. "I can scarcely believe it. How could he think he would get away with such treachery? As soon as we are done here, I will turn my army north and bring Howe to justice." He looked at Malcolm. "You have my word."

"Thank you, your Majesty," was all Malcolm could manage to say.

Cailan continued, "No doubt you wish to see your brother. Unfortunately, he and his men are scouting in the Wilds."

It was almost a relief to Malcolm to hear that. His elder brother... well, his adoptive elder brother... was alive, that was the bulk of the relief. But since his brother was on a mission, he could avoid telling him about their parents and Oriana and Oren for awhile longer yet. It was not going to be pleasant. "I am not eager to tell him, your Majesty."

"Of that, I have no doubt. You will see him again once the battle is over, of that I am certain. I apologize, but there is nothing more I can do. All I can suggest is that you vent your grief against the darkspawn for the time being."

Suddenly, Malcolm was angry at Cailan for being so focused on the darkspawn, just like Duncan, and almost claiming to know how he felt. "What would you know about my grief?" he snapped, uncaring that he was speaking to the King of Ferelden.

Cailan looked taken aback and had no quick reply. Malcolm could feel Duncan's glare burning on the back of his neck. Briefly, he wondered if he misbehaved enough if Duncan would kick him out. Somehow, that prospect seemed unlikely given what the man had told him of his own recruitment.

Duncan stepped forward. "Your Majesty, I apologize—"

Cailan waved one of his gauntleted hands in dismissal. "Don't worry, Duncan. You both must be tired and eager to reach your tents. Have you any news before I go?"

"Your uncle sends his greetings and reminds you that Redcliffe forces could be here in less than a week."

"Ha!" Cailan laughed. "Eamon just wants in on the glory. We've won three battles against the monsters and tomorrow should be no different."

"You sound very confident of that," Malcolm found himself saying.

Cailan didn't look angry over the comment. In fact, he laughed even more. "Overconfident, some say. Right, Duncan?"

The concern on Duncan's face was clear. "Your Majesty, I'm not certain the Blight can be ended quite as... quickly as you wish."

Cailan became a bit more grave. "I'm not even sure this is a true Blight. There are plenty of darkspawn on the field, but alas, we've no sign of an archdemon."

Duncan raised an eyebrow. "Disappointed, your Majesty?"

The king sighed. "I'd hoped for a war like the tales. A king riding with the fabled Grey Wardens against a tainted god. But I suppose this will have to do." He motioned to his guards to start back across the bridge. "I must go before Loghain sends out a search party. Farewell, Grey Wardens."

They watched him leave. Malcolm wondered if the King was really so naive to think darkspawn could be something as glorious as a fairy tale. It didn't seem very smart to him. Looking the king in the eye, he knew the king wasn't a stupid man. Quite the opposite. He was intelligent. But it was easy to be both smart and a fool. And that made Malcolm more angry. He'd just found out that Cailan was his half-brother, and this half-brother of his could end up throwing everything he loved away in the name of some concept of glory.

Once Cailan was halfway to the camp, Duncan said, "What the king said is true. They've won several battles against the darkspawn here."

"He didn't seem to take the darkspawn very seriously."

Duncan didn't reply for a moment. Then he said, "True," followed by another significant pause. "I know there is an archdemon behind this. But I cannot ask the king to act solely on my feeling."

Malcolm frowned. "You could if he were not such a fool."

Duncan fixed him with a glare, a glare that Malcolm was certain the other man had wanted to give him for some time, considering how he'd acted with the king. "You must not speak of the king so. He is... overeager, perhaps, but he is also one of the few Grey Warden allies. Our numbers in Ferelden are too few. We must do what we can and look to Teyrn Loghain to make up the difference. To that end, we should proceed to the Joining ritual without delay."

The frown didn't leave his face. "What do you mean? What ritual?"

"Every recruit must go through a secret ritual we call the Joining in order to become a Grey Warden. The ritual is brief, but some preparation is required. We must begin soon."

Malcolm glanced across the bridge and toward the main camp before looking back at Duncan. He sighed and asked, "What do you need me to do?"

"Feel free to explore the camp here as you wish. All I ask is that you do not leave it for the time being. When you find yourself ready, find a young Grey Warden named Alistair and let him know to gather the other recruits. Your hound can stay with me while I attend some business."

Gunnar barked happily, the traitor. He'd taken to Duncan very quickly.

"Is some of this business telling Alistair about me? Or even Cailan?"

Duncan sighed tiredly. "Most likely. The main Grey Warden tent is on the other side of this bridge. You will find us there, if you need to." Then the Warden Commander of Ferelden headed across the bridge, leaving Malcolm to follow or just stand there, looking stupid. Malcolm chose to follow. Eventually he outpaced Duncan, only to come to a stop where a large chunk had been taken out of the bridge. Far below, Malcolm could see huge, weathered pieces of stone underneath the surrounding trees that must have once belonged to the bridge. When a wave of vertigo caught him, he stepped away from the edge and headed to the camp proper.

As he passed through the secondary entrance, the guard greeted him. "Hail. You must be the new recruit that Duncan brought."

Malcolm looked at the man in askance. How did news travel that fast? He shook his head and went onward. The camp itself was a barely organized mess of tents. There was space between them for people to walk, but the camp seemed to have no logical order. He noticed a kennel with a pack of mabari hounds like his own and wondered who would lead them. In the middle of the central area, there was a Chantry priest going on about something religious. Or he assumed, since they usually went on about religious things or long, boring lessons about things that could be religious if they chose. His parents had educated him about the different heralds of each of the nobility's houses, so he was able to identify what tents belonged to whom. He saw the Templars, the rest of the Chantry, even what could be the tents of the mages. Near those tents, under a tree, he saw an older woman who looked like Nan.

He picked up his step, but as he grew closer, he saw that it wasn't her. The years seemed to have been much kinder to this woman. Besides, Nan was dead. He'd seen her body. He must have lingered too long near the woman, because she said, "Greetings, young man. You are Duncan's newest recruit, are you not? He's not a man easily impressed. You should be proud. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Wynne, one of the mages summoned by the king."

He certainly didn't _feel _proud. Yet, her tone was so friendly and warm that he found himself answering immediately. "My name's Malcolm."

"Well met, and good luck to you on the battlefield," she replied. "To us all, in fact."

This woman, Wynne, had to be approaching her seventies. Or more. But, her? On a battlefield? "Will you be fighting beside the king?"

She smiled, as if she knew what he was thinking. "Not precisely. The Grey Wardens will be on the front lines, not the mages. To defeat the darkspawn, we have to work together." Her eyes slid towards the Templars and the Chantry members. "It's not an idea everyone seems to be able to grasp."

Wynne continued to amaze him. "You've faced darkspawn before?"

"Stragglers, yes. Not the vast horde the scouts speak of. I wonder... how much do you know about the connection between the darkspawn and the Fade?"

He shrugged. "I didn't even know there was a connection, really. I just know that the Fade is where you go when you dream."

"Any time your spirit leaves your earthly body, whether it's to dream or to die, it passes into the realm we call the Fade," she answered. "It's home to many spirits, some benevolent, others, far less so. At the heart of the Fade lies the Black City."

"The Black City?"

"Some say the Black City was once the Golden City, the seat of the Maker. But when mages from the Tevinter Imperium found a way into the city, it was tainted with their sin. That taint transformed those men into twisted reflections of their own hearts. And the Maker cast them back to the earth, where they became the first darkspawn. At least, that's what the Chant of Light says."

Malcolm smiled crookedly. "The Chantry says many things."

Wynne raised an eyebrow. "It may be allegory, meant to teach us that our own evil causes human suffering. Or it may be true. It is as good an explanation as any, for now."

He certainly knew that man's own evil caused human suffering. Arl Howe and his horrible actions were proof of that. "It's something to ponder."

"Yes, occasionally it's wise to contemplate one's actions. But I'm certain Duncan has more for you to do than talk to me. I must go. Nice to meet you, Malcolm." Wynne walked back toward the mages' tents.

Malcolm continued his exploration of the camp. A great number of tents had been pitched amidst the ruins of what once had been the grand fortress of Ostagar. Stone pillars and walls soared above them, their broken edges worn by the elements over centuries of neglect. What remained seemed solid enough, and what was being used for fortifications seemed to look as if they'd hold against an assault.

For a bit, he spoke with the kennel master about the hounds he'd seen. There were some wounded men in one corner of the camp, some silent, others moaning in pain. As he wandered, he bumped into one of other men who was a Grey Warden recruit. The man's accent seemed a bit mottled. There was some of Denerim in it, but a little of somewhere else Malcolm couldn't place. "Where are you from, Daveth?" he asked, unable to hold in his curiosity.

"Oh, I grew up in a village 'bout a day's trip to the east," replied the dark-haired man. "Little blot you wouldn't even find on a map. Haven't been back in years. I struck out for the city as soon as I could outrun my Pa. I've been in Denerim for, what... six years now? Never liked it much, but there's more purses there than anywhere else."

Malcolm's eyebrows raced towards his hairline. "You're a cutpurse?"

"And a pickpocket, thank you very much," Daveth added proudly. "Or was, anyhow. Who'd ever guess I'd end up a Grey Warden?"

"How did they find you?"

Daveth grinned. "I found them. I cut Duncan's purse while he was standing in a crowd. He grabs my wrist, but I squirm out and bolt. The old bugger can run, but the garrison caught me first. I'm a wanted man in Denerim, you see, so they were going to string me up right there."

"What happened then?"

The grin grew wider. "Duncan stopped them. Invoked the Right of Conscription. I gave the garrison the finger while I was walking away. Don't know why Duncan wants someone like me. But he says finesse is important, and that I'm fast with a blade. You bet your boots I am. Besides, it beats getting strung up."

Malcolm couldn't argue that point. "What do you think of Duncan?" He was really starting to wonder how others perceived him and just how clouded by anger his own perception was. If he was disliking a good man just because he was too angry to see the good.

"All right, for an old bugger," Daveth replied. "He's faster than he looks, too."

Malcolm could certainly attest to that. He'd barely kept ahead of Duncan when he'd tried to run near Lake Calenhad. Even if that cliff hadn't stopped him, he was fairly certain Duncan would've soon gotten to within tackling distance and caught him anyway. Daveth said goodbye and headed off to the Grey Warden tents. Malcolm continued through the camp.

The other man he found listening to one of the various Chantry priests who were preaching around the camp. While Malcolm didn't hold any real hostility toward the Chantry, he didn't hold any great love for it, either. And if someone could find solace in it before battle, like it seemed this other recruit did, good for them. The man introduced himself as Ser Jory, a knight of Redcliffe. Jory went on about tests he'd taken and wondered about the tests they had left to go through. Malcolm didn't care, but he didn't tell the other man that. Nothing, as far as he could see at the moment, could've been a worse test than having to leave his parents behind to die, only to find out that they hadn't been his natural parents. With them gone, he would never have the opportunity to look them in the eye and ask them if they truly did love him as their own. His father had said it before he died, but Malcolm hadn't known why then. He hadn't known what to look for, he hadn't been looking for anything except some miracle to get them out alive.

There had been no miracle, however. The Maker hadn't seen fit to grant one.

He wasn't even sure, despite what Duncan said, if he should call them his parents anymore. Especially not if the king and Teyrn Loghain were to know, as well as Duncan and Alistair and who knew who else.

The knight said goodbye and headed for the center of the camp. Malcolm followed him halfheartedly, not knowing here he'd go next. He wasn't ready to find Alistair, not in this mood. However, he was in a mood to test his boundaries. So he wandered to one of the other side exits, where he could leave the camp and head into the valley or the wilds or more ruins. The guard recognized him immediately. "Oh, you're Duncan's new recruit. Sorry, but you're not allowed out of camp. Warden Commander's orders."

Malcolm wanted to roll his eyes. Part of him understood the reason for ordering all the guards to make sure he stayed in the camp. And he was sure somehow word would get back to Duncan that he'd tested his ability to leave said camp. But most of him was just angry, as angry as he'd been when the man had conscripted him. All he had to do was ask that day, anytime earlier that day, and there would have been no problem. Yet, he hadn't. And there was the problem.

He headed back toward the center of camp. Near to where Duncan had said the Grey Wardens' tents were, Malcolm noticed the King's heraldry displayed on a banner outside of a tent. Curiosity piqued, Malcolm stepped up to the man standing guard.

The armored man smiled affably, a much different guard than the glowering ones Malcolm had met before. "Greetings. King Cailan is not in his tent right now."

"I'm not looking for him," said Malcolm. "Not really, anyway. Just wanted to know about him. I'm new to the camp. You must see him a lot, right?"

The royal guard nodded. "I suppose I do, though he's spending most of his time with the Grey Wardens. He rides with them wherever they go, in fact. Teyrn Loghain sees the king whenever he can and argues with him over the coming battle, but the king just waves him off. The king wants to end the Blight with a single, huge battle the bards will sing of for centuries." The guard paused. "Do you think that's possible?"

Malcolm shrugged. "We'll see, I guess."

"That's how the teyrn feels. He'll do what the king wants in the end, though. The king thought it was funny the teyrn called him reckless. And they fought about the queen."

"The queen?"

"She's the teyrn's daughter. He wasn't happy about something she did... or something the king did, I'm not sure. I probably shouldn't discuss it, come to think of it. Sorry."

"It's okay. Do you know where the king is?"

The guard shrugged. "I believe he's with the Grey Wardens in camp, drinking. He holds them in high regard, like his father did."

So King Maric held the Grey Wardens in high regard, and his son Cailan practically worshipped them. Meanwhile, one of his bastard sons was already a Grey Warden, and the other one was set to become one soon, whether he liked it or not. Malcolm wondered which would be worse—being a Grey Warden or being the king. Knowing what he did of his father's work running the teyrnir, Malcolm figured being the king was the worse job. "I should go."

The guard inclined his head. "As you wish."

As Malcolm walked away, he started to wonder what Duncan was up to. If Duncan was meeting with Cailan and Teyrn Loghain now, if it was strategy being planned or if he was telling them about him. He shivered. Somehow, he didn't want them to know. Or maybe Duncan had already told them all while he'd been wandering around the camp and talking to old women who reminded him of Nan or trying to escape the camp and the Grey Wardens. His thoughts made him stop paying attention to where he was going, and he unceremoniously tripped over a tent stake and ended up with his face in the dirt.

A guard that had been standing outside the tent the stake belonged to helped him up. "You tripped over part of the tent of Teyrn Loghain," the guard said after Malcolm was back on his feet. "Did you have any business for him or was it just bad luck?"

Malcolm brushed some dust off his leathers and dirt off his face. "Inattention, more like. Is Teyrn Loghain inside?"

"He's inside, but I don't think it's my place to discuss his activities."

Malcolm smiled, hoping the guard would feel nice enough to give him some information. "Surely, you can tell me a little bit about him."

The guard sighed. "I suppose, as long as we talk quietly. " His voice dropped to a near whisper as he continued, "He and the king have been arguing for days. The teyrn's known the king since he was swaddled, so they don't stand on ceremony. The teyrn speaks his mind and the king yells right back. Personally, I think the king should do what Teyrn Loghain tells him. Without the teyrn, we wouldn't be doing as well here as we are."

Something made Malcolm want to meet this man who was trying to reason with the glory-seeking Cailan. "If you would please, I'd like an audience with Teyrn Loghain."

The guard thought it over. "Hmm. I suppose you have a message for him. Hold on, then."

Moments later, the guard exited the tent with Teyrn Loghain. The tall, dark-haired man looked very weary. "Yes, what is it?" he asked Malcolm. "Ah, you are Duncan's new recruit, I assume."

Malcolm couldn't keep the surprise from his voice. "How could you know that?"

"His Majesty could not contain his excitement after your meeting. How could I _not_ hear about it?" The man sounded like he'd rather hear the entire Chant of Light in one sitting than hear about the Grey Wardens. "Cailan's fascination with the Wardens goes far beyond the ordinary. Are you aware his father brought your order back to Ferelden?"

"Yes, I've heard that." It had been one of Brother Aldous's many lessons.

Loghain nodded. "Maric respected the Grey Wardens. More than respected. They have an honored place in the hearts of our people." The teyrn paused and studied Malcolm closely. "You look familiar. Have I seen you at the Landsmeet?"

Apparently Duncan had yet to tell them and Malcolm decided it certainly wasn't _his_ place to do so. "No, we've never met."

"No, I remember you. Bryce Cousland's youngest. I never forget a face. The king told me of his promise. I am certain he has every intention of following it through. Now, I must return to my tent. Your Warden Commander is going to be meeting with myself and the king momentarily. Pray that our king proves amenable to wisdom, if you're the praying sort."

Malcolm spoke without thinking first, something he'd been doing a lot of lately. "You don't seem very fond of him."

Loghain turned back around and glared at him. "He's Maric's son and the leader of my beloved Ferelden. And a very young man. I try to keep that in mind, as should you." With that, he ducked back into his tent.

Malcolm walked away, considering himself quite roundly scolded. He supposed he deserved it, he'd pretty much just accused the king's closest advisor of not liking him. And the man had been a good friend to King Maric, and known Cailan since he'd been born. Malcolm just figured that Cailan should act more like Fergus, be less about glory and more about the business of winning a battle in the most tactically sound manner possible. With a shrug, he headed further into the camp, trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to find this other Grey Warden in all of this mess.


	5. Chapter 5

**5**

**Duncan**

After sending a someone to pass a message to the camp's guards that Malcolm wasn't allowed out of camp without his express permission, or at least in the company of three other Wardens, the Commander of the Grey went about looking for Alistair before Malcolm could stumble into him. Judging by the look on Malcolm's face when he'd walked away, Duncan didn't think the boy would be trying to find Alistair right off. Which he thought was a good thing, because after seeing how Malcolm had reacted to Cailan, he hoped he wouldn't have the same start with Alistair. Yet the boy's assessment of Cailan's lack of forethought in terms of the battle and Cailan's little fear of the darkspawn had been a correct one. He had insight, even when he was determined to be capricious.

Duncan found Alistair stuck in conversation with the Revered Mother. As he got closer, he realized it was less a conversation and more a lecture, followed by an order to give the mages a message. Alistair agreed to deliver the message, even though he looked as if he'd rather poke a stick in his eye. When Alistair saw him, he smiled and trotted over. "You're back! Did you get that new recruit? I figured you have, since it's already going about camp that you'd come back with one. Wait, is it the dog? Do they even have to go through the Joining?"

"This is our new recruit's mabari, Gunnar. I told him I'd take him while he explored the camp. The kennel master will eventually need to see him. And yes, the dogs do have to go through a Joining of sort. If they're biting darkspawn, they'll end up swallowing some of the blood. Can't be avoided." Duncan had learned about that long ago, after he'd first become a Warden. One of his compatriots, Kell, had had a warhound of his own—Hafter. The dog had been an amazing animal, as much a warrior as any man, and sometimes more so.

"Oh, a person, then? Do you need me to find him? Because, if I'm not mistaken, as the youngest member of the order, I'm supposed to help them with the Joining preparation."

"From what I hear, you need to bring the mages a message."

Alistair frowned. "Yes, there is that. But what about after?"

"I've told Malcolm to look for you, so don't worry about looking for him. I imagine it will be a little while before he finds you. He was... in a mood."

"You do that to people sometimes." Alistair gave him a lopsided smile.

"I've been doing that since I was your age," replied Duncan. "In fact, the first time I came to Ferelden as a new Grey Warden, I got myself into trouble in Denerim, right before my group was the meet with the King. I thought my Commander was going to have a heart attack keeping a hold on her temper."

"What sort of trouble are we talking about?"

Together, they started walking towards the old temple, where the Revered Mother had told Alistair the particular mage would be found. "Oh, I imagine I'd tried to steal something. I'd still been convinced I didn't want to be a Grey Warden, and I broke every possible rule I could at every possible opportunity. The Commander was angry and embarassed enough that she offered me to King Maric for him to throw me in the dungeon in Fort Drakon. Lucky for me, Maric decided that the dungeons were too full and pardoned me."

"Did you stop breaking the rules then?"

"No, not then, anyway. Not even a week later I stole a dagger from the First Enchanter when we were at the Circle of the Magi. That same dagger saved my life some weeks later, so it only reinforced the habit of stealing things that sat out for anyone to take them. Or anyone with the skills to take them." Looking back, Duncan still couldn't believe half the things he'd done as a youth, both before and after becoming a Grey Warden.

Alistair glanced over at him. "Does this mean I should start keeping better watch on my things?"

"No, no. Eventually, they gave up trying to punish me in negative ways. Instead, they made me second in command of the Ferelden Wardens. That's what made me grow out of it." That, and being put in charge of checking in on his friend's bastard son that he'd help bring back to Ferelden with Fiona, but he kept that part to himself. Ironic, it seemed, that both of Maric's younger sons had been born at Weisshaupt, and soon the youngest would be joining the middle in being a Grey Warden.

"A promotion as a punishment? Brilliant, I say. I'd hate that."

Duncan smiled. "I'll keep that in mind." He stopped walking before they got close to the old temple.

Alistair noticed and pulled to a stop as well. "Is something wrong?"

"There's something you must know about the new recruit. He is your brother."

"My... what? Did you recruit Cailan? Conscripted him? Loghain must be beside himself, but I bet Cailan is excited—"

"Not Cailan. This is a younger brother."

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Did Maric get around or something?"

Duncan sighed. "That's just what Malcolm asked when I told him. His mother was a warrior from the Anderfels. Maric met her when he journeyed to Weisshaupt when the Grey Wardens offered a formal apology for their part in the rebellion against King Arland two centuries before. His mother brought him to Maric and she disappeared. We learned years later that she had died not even a year after having Malcolm. Maric decided the same for him as he had for you—that he was not to be raised at court or recognized as an heir. One of the families of the nobility took him in as their own. He wasn't even the one I was going to recruit when I went up to Highever."

"Are you talking about the Couslands? I've met the elder son, Fergus. He's a dead ringer for Teyrn Cousland, so you must be talking about the younger one. I never met him. I don't think he ever visited Redcliffe when Teyrn Cousland brought his family when he visited Arl Eamon." Alistair frowned. Duncan noticed the hurt in the young man's eyes. "So... this Malcolm. He has a family, then?"

He knew the answer would hurt Alistair. The young man had always wanted that—a family. After the way Arlessa Isolde had treated him before finally sending him to the Chantry, Alistair had never really had that. The most equivalent thing he'd had to a family was the company of the Grey Wardens for the past six months. So while one bastard son was relegated to first living in the stables to living in a monastery, the other bastard son had been raised by an actual family as part of the family. "He _had_ one, Alistair. As I said, he wasn't the person I was going to recruit when I went to Highever. It was supposed to be one of the family's knights, Ser Gilmore. But Ser Gilmore was killed when Arl Howe attacked Highever Castle after Fergus had left for Ostagar with almost all of the Highever troops. Howe killed everyone left behind in the castle, the teyrn, the teyrna, even Fergus's wife and child. Ser Gilmore stayed behind to meet certain death to make sure the teyrna and Malcolm could escape. But Teyrna Eleanor decided she would stay behind with her husband, who was mortally wounded. In the end, only Malcolm and I, and his mabari, made it out alive."

Alistair paled. "That's... horrible. I'd heard a rumor going around the camp, but I didn't think it was true. Killing so many others in the face of a darkspawn attack? At the start of the Blight? I didn't think anyone could be so stupid. I guess I assumed wrong." He paused, rubbing his chin. "Did he grow up knowing who he was, like I did?"

"No. The Couslands never told him. They were going to before Teyrn Cousland left for Ostagar, but Howe managed to waylay that due to the timing of his attack. He found out on the trip here, and he's... not happy."

"I can't imagine he would be." Alistair frowned again. "Do Cailan and Loghain know?"

"No. I have to go tell them. Cailan, unfortunately, came to greet us when we arrived. Malcolm reacted poorly, I suspect more because of the trauma of what happened in Highever than meeting a half-brother for the first time. Judging from Malcolm's remarks afterward, I believe he thinks Cailan a fool."

"I've wondered myself, at times, when I see Cailan so excited to face the darkspawn. You know, if he could, he would join the Grey Wardens. I think he'd even prefer to be a Grey Warden instead of the king."

Duncan raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't you, if you had to choose between the two?"

"Oh, don't even say that, Duncan. I'd rather face the archdemon followed by a horde of darkspawn fifty thousand strong than become king. Maybe even a hundred thousand."

The comment made Duncan chuckle. But that was the thing of it—the people who didn't want to be rulers of nations more often than not tended to be the best ones. "Be careful what you say. The darkspawn might grant your wish." He voice became grave to match his thoughts as they became dark. "It is a Blight, I am sure of it. Cailan is convinced we can stop the entire thing with one battle, but he doesn't recognize the gravity of threat a true Blight presents." Images passed before him of the nightmares he'd been experiencing in the past weeks, nightmares more intense than even those a true Blight would cause. But however close he knew he was coming to his Calling, he had seen the archdemon in those nightmares. If only he could get Cailan to believe him.

"You're having nightmares, aren't you?" He had framed it as a question, but Alistair made it an accusation. "Not just the ones the rest of us have."

"No. If I do not die during this Blight, my time to go to the Deep Roads will be soon, I'm afraid."

The younger man scowled. "You're just chock full of good news today, aren't you?" he said, trying to sound light hearted, but failing. His eyes even avoided Duncan's. "I suppose I should go deliver that message. You've messages of your own to deliver, as I recall." With that, Alistair practically ran off before Duncan could say anything to make the lad feel better.

Duncan sighed again, and then set out for Loghain's tent, where he'd been told he could find both Cailan and Loghain. He passed the Grey Warden tents as he walked. Cailan ducked out of them and fell into step with Duncan. "Well met, Duncan."

"You too, your Majesty. Again, feel I must I apologize for my new recruit's behavior earlier."

Cailan waved his hand as he'd done before. "I meant it when I said it was no matter. He's been through a lot recently. Besides, it's nice when people treat me like a normal person instead of the king." He grinned. "Even when they snap at me. Well, at least when it isn't Loghain. I think all he does lately is snap at me."

"He's always been that way, your Majesty. If I remember correctly, he snapped at your father quite often. Perhaps you could think of it as his way of expressing affection?"

Cailan burst into laugher. "Loghain expressing affection? Loghain _feeling_ affection? I don't even remember him even being affectionate with Anora and she's his daughter. Anyway, I hope he isn't feeling any of that snapping type of affection right now. I have to see him to talk about the strategy he's come up with. I wish it could just be one glorious charge, but that would be ridiculously stupid. I think he's something of a hammer and anvil technique in mind."

"I need to speak with Teyrn Loghain as well. And you, your Majesty."

"About what? Is something wrong?"

"No. But we should wait to speak on it until we are in Teyrn Loghain's tent."

Cailan, brought up at court and knowing that there were ears everywhere, even in a military camp, nodded and held his questions until they were away from prying eyes and ears. When they got to Loghain's tent, the teyrn didn't look angry or excited at their appearance. Instead, he looked _weary_. Duncan could see it in the man's eyes, in the crags of his face, the way he carried himself. The man had spent too much time at war and hardly looked forward to more. And now he had a young king to deal with as another war loomed—a task that was much more difficult than facing it with a wiser, older king. Especially a king who was his best friend, and not his best friend's son. Cailan wasn't a bad king. His fault was that he was young and had yet to learn some of the wisdom his father had possessed. The dog settled down just outside the tent's front flap as the men went inside.

Loghain motioned for the two of them to sit. "Are you here about the strategy meeting, Duncan, or is it something else?"

"Something else, your lordship."

The teyrn narrowed his eyes and studied Duncan for a moment. Duncan didn't look away. He might have, once, when he was much, much younger. But it had been many years since he'd first met Loghain, and he wasn't a young lad any longer. "Has it something to do with your new recruit?"

"Yes, it does."

Duncan had thought Loghain would be the first to guess, but instead, it was Cailan who said, "He's a bastard of my father's, isn't he?" A note of hurt rang through Cailan's question.

"Yes, he is, your Majesty. I'm not sure if it will make you feel any better, but Malcolm was not a result of any infidelity to your mother on Maric's part. The boy is a decade younger than you. And your—"

"Yes. My mother had died long before that. I'd only been three. I barely remember her. Most of my memories are stories I could pull from my father and Loghain." Cailan gave Duncan a sad smile. "But thank you for telling me that. It does make me feel better. And yet, in a way, more sad. I think I would have liked a younger brother around. Or two, as the case may be."

"That explains why the boy looked so familiar when I spoke to him," said Loghain, stopping Cailan from his reminiscing about having a larger family when he'd been growing up.

"You spoke to Malcolm, your lordship?"

Loghain nodded. "Yes, I did. He left not long before the two of you arrived. He accused me of not being very fond of Cailan."

"Ha!" Cailan laughed. "Perhaps he heard you yelling at me. That would certainly make anyone think you didn't like me."

Loghain's reply to Cailan was a glare. To Duncan, he said, "Are you going to keep him off the front lines as you have Alistair, so far?"

"I am leaving that up to you and King Cailan," replied Duncan. "With how many troops we are committing to this next battle, I'm not sure that it's wise to keep two more excellent fighters off the battlefield."

"If Eamon were here, he'd be telling us to send both Alistair _and_ this Malcolm as far away as possible. He's still going on complaining about my not having an heir. Alas, he is delayed and won't arrive for another week as Duncan relayed to me. The battle will be well over by the time he gets here with his men." Cailan gave Loghain a significant look. "And it won't be my choice, either, Loghain. The darkspawn are going to end up dictating when this last battle here will take place unless we retreat from Ostagar entirely."

Loghain crossed his arms. "I don't see any reason to keep them off the field. Neither of them were formally acknowledged by Maric. Yes, it's unmistakable that they are both as much Maric's sons as Cailan is, but it still remains that they are not heirs to the throne. They are Grey Wardens and they should be used as such."

"Still..." Cailan drummed his fingers lightly on the table. "I guess it's Eamon's voice ringing in my head about making sure there's someone always left alive with some of the Theirin blood in them."

Loghain leaned forward and stared at his son-in-law. "I take it that Arl Eamon has asked you to set Anora aside since she's yet to provide you with a child."

Cailan stared right back. "Yes, he has. And my answer was no. And my answer will always be no. She is my queen, the Queen of Ferelden, and I cannot just set her aside." A grin came to his face. "Besides, I love her. I couldn't leave her."

The teyrn sat back and uncrossed his arms. A reply in body action only, reducing the hostility he presented. Duncan imagined there would probably be yelling later. He decided he didn't want to be anywhere near the king and the teyrn when they started arguing. "Please, once you two have figured out the final strategy, let me know so I may see it. But, for now, I have a Joining to oversee, and that takes some preparation." Duncan stood up from his chair.

Cailan watched him, his light blue eyes wistful. "I wish I could be there."

"I understood that it was a secret ceremony," said Loghain.

"I meant I wish I could be a Grey Warden, like my brothers."

Cailan had finally voiced what Duncan, and probably Loghain, had suspected all along. Though Cailan could never be a Grey Warden—no Warden Commander had ever dared submit a reigning monarch to the Right of Conscription and Duncan had no desire to be the first—if the young man had ever had the opportunity, he would have been a good one. "You still fight darkspawn, your Majesty. Quite well, I might add. Your father did, too, right alongside Grey Wardens in the Deep Roads. One day, I'll have to tell you the story."

Loghain snorted, and his mouth cracked a partial smile, the first hint of amusement Duncan had seen in Loghain in many years. "You might give him ideas, Duncan," said Loghain. "At times, Maric was not the best example of kingly behavior for his son to follow. Certainly not the time he snuck out of the castle, and then out of Denerim to join a small band of Grey Wardens in the Deep Roads."

Cailan's eyes lit up. "This I _have_ to hear."

"Now, if I'm remembering correctly, this was in your cutpurse days, wasn't it, Duncan?" asked Loghain.

"I am not going to answer that," Duncan said.

The King gave him a pleading look.

Duncan sighed. "It was many, many years ago, your Majesty."

"You? A cutpurse? Picking locks and pockets? I'm shocked, Warden Commander," said Cailan, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

"Yes, well, I wasn't a Warden Commander then. I'd been a Grey Warden for barely six months. I had a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do. And your father, in that time, helped with some of that. Though, I think part of it was his choice to not throw me into Fort Drakon's dungeons."

"Should I keep a better eye on my belongings?" asked the king.

"Not because of any threat from me, but I'm sure there will be some men of a nefarious nature around the camp. So yes, please do keep watch on your belongings. Now I must take my leave and attend to some work of my own. If you would excuse me, Teyrn Loghain. Your Majesty."

"I will meet with you later about the battle strategy, Duncan," said Loghain.

Duncan nodded and left the tent before he had to relay any other embarrassing tales from his youth. Gunnar jumped up as soon as he exited through the tent's front flap. "Yes, it's time to go see the kennel master," he said to the dog. "We need to make sure the darkspawn won't make you ill."

The dog barked in reply and trotted at his side as they made their way across the camp.


	6. Chapter 6

**6**

**Malcolm**

Malcolm drifted to the back of the camp, up a short stone ramp, and followed the sound of an argument. As he stepped onto a stone dais, he saw a man who looked remarkably like him but a couple of years older, in the middle of an argument with a robed mage.

The mage had a dark scowl plastered on his face. "What is it now? Haven't the Grey Wardens asked more than enough of the Circle?"

The other man held up his hands as if to fend off the mage's anger. "I simply came to deliver a message from the Revered Mother, ser mage. She desires your presence."

Malcolm was certain that this other man was Alistair.

The mage brow grew clouded with outrage and the nostrils on his pug nose flared. "What Her Reverence _desires_ is of no concern to me. I am busy helping the Grey Wardens. And by the kings orders, I might add!"

Alistair raised an eyebrow at the mage. "Should I have asked her to write a note?"

At that, Malcolm held back a laugh.

The mage's voice got impossibly louder at Alistair's remark. "Tell her I will not be harassed in this manner!"

The Grey Warden's splintmail armor clinked as he dropped his arms to his sides. "Yes, _I_ was harassing _you_ by delivering a message."

The mage finally lowered his voice. "Your glibness does you no credit."

"And here I thought we were getting along so well. I was even going to name one of my children after you,"Alistair said amiably, but then finished with, "...the grumpy one."

The harassed mage threw up his arms in exasperation. "Enough! I will speak to the woman if I must!" He stormed away from Alistair and pushed past Malcolm. "Get out of my way, fool!"

Alistair turned toward Malcolm. "You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

Malcolm nodded, thinking of Arl Howe."I know exactly what you mean."

"It's like a party! We could all stand in a circle and hold hands. _That_ would give the darkspawn something to think about." Alistair paused and looked at Malcolm again. "Wait, we haven't met, have we? I don't suppose you happen to be another mage?"

Malcolm was starting to really wonder if Duncan had spoken with Alistair yet about their specific circumstance. He decided to play it safe and not be the one to bring it up. "I'm no mage."

"Good! Less getting yelled at for me, then. But, the day is still young." Alistair stopped talking again and narrowed his eyes. "Wait, I _do_ know how you are. You're Duncan's new recruit, from Highever. I should have recognized you right away. I apologize."

"How could you recognize me?" _Aside from looking at a mirror or at Cailan, anyway_, he thought.

"Duncan sent word. And when he got back, he spoke to me a little while ago. He spoke quite highly of you and, he, um... well, he was right. We look enough alike that if we aren't related, then Andraste is in secret collusion with the darkspawn. Or something equally as unlikely, given what I just said is probably blasphemy and I could get struck down any second now."

Malcolm took a small step away from Alistair, just in case.

Alistair noticed. "I saw that. Don't think I didn't. You think I'm going to be struck down, don't you?"

"On the scale of blasphemous things you could say, I'd think that was pretty far up there. But, if you haven't been struck down yet, you're probably safe for now."

"That's good. It would've been unfortunate to meet my younger brother, and then promptly get struck by lightning or something. It would also make for a bad first impression." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Alistair. And aside from apparently being your brother, I'm also the newest Grey Warden, though, I guess you knew that, too. Anyway, as the junior member of the order, I'll be accompanying you when you prepare for the Joining."

Malcolm shook the outstretched hand. "I'm Malcolm. It's, um, awkward to meet you." He couldn't figure out yet if it was good or bad. After all, he already had an older brother—Fergus. Except he wasn't even sure of that anymore. Fergus could already have been killed by the darkspawn, or hunted down and attacked by Howe's men. Fergus was the brother he'd grown up with, the brother he'd idolized as a small boy. And it was Fergus's example he would hold Cailan and Alistair to. So far, Cailan hadn't much impressed him. Alistair remained a mystery.

"Malcolm. Right, that was the name. And you aren't the only one who feels awkward. I'm just hoping that we don't both have to see Cailan together at any point. Now _that_ would be awkward. And if Loghain were there, doing that glowering thing that is does, because all he does is glower. And scowl a bit, but he's mostly made of glower." He shuddered. "And I don't think he likes me."

"I don't think it would be a great loss if he did. I don't think he likes the king, either."

"Hmm. True."

Then came the awkward silence. The sounds of the camp washed between them, arrows thudding into straw-filled targets, wounded men moaning, swords clanging as they crashed together, but it did nothing to allay the true silence. So far, Malcolm decided he liked Alistair. He could certainly get on with him. Unlike Cailan, he seemed level-headed, and his sense of humor was keen. It was Malcolm's view that a good man needed a sense of humor somewhere, even if he had to keep it to himself for decorum's sake. From what he'd seen of Duncan, he knew there was a dry sense of humor in him somewhere. But the man must've had years of practice keeping up a front of being very serious. Malcolm started slowly walking toward the Grey Warden tents before he said, "Would you mind telling me about Duncan? I don't really know much about him. I never really got a chance to talk to him when he was at Highever. I mean, I was going to, but then there was the attack and... well, you know the rest."

"For one, he's the leader of all the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. Which he would say doesn't mean much, as there aren't many of us here. Yet." Alistair shrugged. "Beyond that, he's a good man. A good judge of character. I owe him a lot."

"You do?" It seemed that the number of people who owed Duncan for one reason or another continued to grow. Malcolm wondered if it was a Duncan thing or a Grey Warden thing.

Alistair nodded, and then looked away for a moment. "I was conscripted." He held up his hand as it to ward off a question. "Not that I didn't want to join. I was training as a templar in the Chantry before Duncan recruited me. That was about six months ago."

A mage-hunter? Thus far, Alistair hadn't seemed like the mage-hunter type. The kind that tended to be a lot more deadly serious and cranky at the world. "A templar? Really?"

"I wasn't a full templar yet—I hadn't taken any vows. You see, joining the Chantry wasn't my idea. My fate was decided for me long before that. Duncan saw that I wasn't happy, and figured my training against mages could double for fighting darkspawn. So now, here I stand, a proud Grey Warden." He sighed. "The Grand Cleric wouldn't have let me go if Duncan never forced the issue. I'll always be grateful to him."

Malcolm mulled that over, remembering his mother's threats to send him to the Chantry, and his own strenuous objections and solemn promises to behave to keep that from happening. "You didn't want to join the Chantry?"

"No. I spent years in that chantry, hopelessly resigned to my fate. Duncan was the first person who cared for what I wanted. He risked a lot of trouble with the Grand Cleric to help me."

"Why would it cause trouble? The Grey Wardens have the right to conscript anyone. My father, I mean, Teyrn Cousland, even brought it up when Duncan said I would make a better recruit than the one offered from the knights of Highever. Asked if Duncan was going to use the Right of Conscription to recruit me." Duncan had said no then, but fate had other ideas about conscription, and Malcolm wasn't exactly happy about it. But, he was reluctant to bring them up because it was quite obvious that Alistair looked up to Duncan quite a bit. Malcolm focused on the ground in front of him as Alistair continued to talk.

"The thing is, King Maric, Cailan's father, and, our father, I suppose, reaffirmed the power the Grey Wardens were given during the Blights. In practice, we can't conscript too often without hurting our cause. We were exiled from Ferelden once, best not to let that happen again. So... what about you?"

Malcolm looked up. "What about me?"

"Did you want to become a Grey Warden?"

The frankness of the question took him by surprise, but he suspected Alistair had assumed the answer was yes. "Yes and no. Mostly no. I wasn't given a choice."

Alistair stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms. "Conscripted, huh? Duncan rarely needs to do that, I hear. Well, at least where the person being conscripted doesn't want to become a Warden. Usually, conscripting someone tends to make someone else angry, like an executioner or, in my case, the Grand Cleric."

Malcolm found he couldn't quite look Alistair in the eye. "When I was with my... and they were... and Duncan appeared..." Malcolm finally brought himself to face Alistair. "I don't want to talk about it. But I do respect the Grey Wardens and I did... do... well, I _am_ joining them."

A scowl appeared on Alistair's face. "And what do you think of Duncan?"

Malcolm wasn't sure how he felt about Duncan. For a long time, he'd admired him. Now, he spent so much time angry with him for what he'd done, for conscripting him against his will, that he had no idea. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I'm still mad at him. Ask me again when I'm not."

Alistair uncrossed his arms and the forming scowl dissipated. "Fair enough. Most recruits come in having some sort of conflict with themselves if they really want to be here. Me, I was so miserable at the Chantry that the Grey Wardens were a respectable and much better way to spend my life. At least to me. And a lot of recruits haven't seen any darkspawn. Once they do, they sometimes get... flighty. Have you ever encountered a darkspawn before?"

"No, I haven't. Not sure if I look forward to it, either, like it seems Cailan does."

"When I fought my first one, I wasn't prepared for how monstrous it was. I can't say I'm looking forward to encountering another. Boggles the mind that Cailan somehow looks forward to coming face to face with an entire _horde_."

"Now here's a question for you. This place is quite far into the Wilds, so how did anyone really even know about this Blight enough to come out here and fight it?"

"The Grey Wardens keep watch. We... feel the darkspawn when they come. You'll understand after the Joining if you... well, you'll understand. Not to mention people start to notice when darkspawn pour out of the wilds and taint everything around them. Just a guess. You know, we should head back to Duncan. I imagine he's eager to get things started." Alistair started off toward the Grey Warden tents at a much faster pace than before.

Malcolm wondered what he was running from. He'd sounded like he'd almost let something about the Joining slip that he wasn't supposed to. That whole secrecy thing again. He bet it had something to do with the darkspawn. They went deeper into the camp, heading towards the center, where Duncan waited for them with two other men at a large bonfire. As they got closer to the fire, Gunnar noticed them and barked happily.

The bark made Duncan look up. "You found Alistair, did you? Good. I'll assume you are ready to begin preparations." His eyes slid over to Alistair. "Assuming, of course, that you're quite finished riling up the mages, Alistair."

Alistair shrugged and held his hands out. "What can I say? The Revered Mother ambushed me. The way she wields guilt, they should stick her in the army."

Duncan fixed Alistair with the same look Malcolm had gotten earlier after he'd spoken ill of the king. Malcolm felt sorry for Alistair, being the recipient of that look. It certainly wasn't one he ever wanted to get again, yet something told him that he'd be the one getting that look quite often. "She forced you to sass the mage, did she? We cannot afford to antagonize anyone, Alistair. We don't need to give anyone more ammunition against us."

Alistair blanched. "You're right, Duncan. I apologize."

Malcolm quickly shifted his eyes to the fire. He'd seen the hurt in Alistair's eyes at being scolded.

"Now, then," said Duncan, "since you are all here, we can begin."

Malcolm continued watching the fire as Duncan gave them instructions for their next task. Go out into the Korcari Wilds, kill darkspawn, bring back vials of blood, and find some old treaties. He wondered why such treaties had been left behind in an old Wilds ruin, but he decided it wasn't his place to question it, just to bring them back to what counted as civilization.

"Malcolm, do you know what you need to do?"

Duncan's direct address brought Malcolm's full attention from the fire to the Warden Commander. "What? Yes. Three vials of darkspawn blood and some Grey Warden treaties. Got it."

Duncan nodded. "Good. Then the four of you best be on your way. We need to get this done as soon as possible. The coming battle draws nearer."

Alistair lead them towards one of the side entrances of the camp, a large wooden gate guarded by one of the soldiers. The gate appeared to be new, the wood was light, the weather and smoke had yet to darken them to match some of the other wooden fortifications. The man allowed them to pass and wished them good luck. Malcolm remained quiet, wondering if his brother had passed through these same gates, if the same guard had wished his brother the same luck. He wondered if his brother had been blessed by any luck, or if he'd been killed by darkspawn or Howe's soldiers.

The small party trudged along a skinny path through the forest, trees soaring over them. "I heard that another party sent out a few days ago is overdue to return," said Ser Jory. "If there's a lot of darkspawn lurking about, they could've been taken by them."

Malcolm flinched and hoped one one had noticed. He kept his eyes trained on the ground, on bent grasses and exposed rocks that made up the narrow trail.

But Alistair had noticed. "Please watch what you say, Ser Jory. Malcolm's brother was in charge of that party."

Daveth, from his position at point, called back, "You two have another brother?"

Alistair, opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it. He glanced over at Malcolm, who looked at Alistair helplessly. He'd figured that if something like this came up, Duncan would be there, and Duncan would've handled it in the graceful way he was able to handle so many other situations. Instead, it was now up to him and Alistair, neither of whom were gifted with practically any social graces at all when caught unawares.

Daveth, who had turned around to face them and began to walk backwards, smiled at the lack of answer. "Oh, don't tell me that you didn't think I hadn't figured it out. If you two aren't brothers then put me in a dress and call me a Dalish keeper."

Malcolm was tempted to call him all sorts of other things at his awful timing.

Ser Jory looked from Alistair, to Malcolm, and back to Alistair. "You two are brothers?"

"What? Are you _blind_, ser knight?" Daveth asked.

"I'm not one to go looking for things like that," said Jory in an attempt at his defense.

Leave it to the cutpurse to recognize brothers when he saw them, and a knight to not notice at all, Malcolm thought. Meanwhile, Alistair had put a hand over his face in desperation. Malcolm sighed, and then said quietly, "My missing brother, Fergus, is my adoptive brother, all right? Let's just leave it at that."

Alistair gave Malcolm a grateful look for coming up with a half-decent reply.

Ser Jory cocked his head to the side. "Fergus Cousland? He survived the massacre at Highever, then?"

"I said, let's just leave it at that," Malcolm snapped.

Daveth raised an eyebrow, and then turned around and paid attention to the task of walking point. Jory's eyebrows pulled together in anger at Malcolm's tone, but he said nothing. Malcolm chose to search forest around them with his eyes instead of looking at any of his compatriots. No one else said anything for a while as they went further into the Wilds. The trees had started to become taller, arching over them in a green vault. Snow remained in some of the shaded areas, behind rocks, at the base of some of the trees. A slight mist crept about them, wrapping them in its fingers. His brother may have died in these very mists. Malcolm couldn't stop the shiver that came over him. He resisted the urge to draw his sword against his fear at his brother's unknown fate.

The company broke through the trees to merge into to a larger path that wound through a marshy area. This path, Malcolm noticed, was large enough for a wagon to follow. Howls sounded around them, and the hair on Malcolm's arms stood on end. Wolves. He barely had time to get out his sword and shield before the wolves were on them. Usually when Malcolm had encountered wolves in the forests around Highever, he'd been armed with a bow and arrows, having purposely gone to hunt them with his brother at the request of some of their people. This time, he was close to them and their gnashing teeth. To his surprise, it didn't bother him much. If he was going to die, so be it. He figured that if he was supposed to, he would have back at the castle.

Eventually, the wolves stopped coming, the rest of the pack trotting away from them, deciding to cut their losses before they were all wiped out. Malcolm cleaned his sword and sheathed it reluctantly. Daveth announced he wasn't going to let the pelts go to waste, he could get good coin for them, and set about skinning the lot. Once the man was done, they resumed their journey. Closer to the stagnant water, they came across a wounded soldier. He could barely talk, and all Malcolm could really understand was "darkspawn." They fixed the man up as best they good and the soldier limped away in the direction of Ostagar. Malcolm watched him go, not certain that the man would make it back.

Behind him, Jory started talking about being overrun by darkspawn. "Did you hear? An entire patrol of seasoned men killed by darkspawn!"

Alistair glared at him. "Calm down, Ser Jory. We'll be fine if we're careful."

"Those soldiers were careful, and they were still overwhelmed. How many darkspawn can the four of us slay? A dozen? A hundred? There's an entire _army_ in these forests."

Malcolm stopped looking at the dead bodies where he'd been checking to see if any of them were Fergus to pay attention to Jory. The knight was starting to sound like a coward, which seemed unlikely a person for Duncan to recruit.

Alistair sighed. "There are darkspawn about, but we're in no danger of walking into the bulk of the horde."

"How do you know?" Jory threw up his arms. "I'm not a coward, but this is foolish and reckless. We should go back."

The man might deny being cowardly, Malcolm thought, but he was certainly acting like one. "You sound like a coward to me," he said.

Alistair frowned at Malcolm. "A bit of fear isn't unnatural, you know. Few relish meeting darkspawn up close. I know I don't."

Malcolm knew when he was being scolded. "I didn't say I did," he replied, letting himself sound insolent. He didn't care. And he was starting to get the distinct impression that his new-found brother wasn't very fond of him.

Jory turned to Malcolm. "It's just all these tests, you see. I didn't think there would be so many. And what's the point of another test to become a Grey Warden if the test could kill you?"

Malcolm was about to say something, but noticed the flicker of worry pass through Alistair's eyes. What did that mean?

"Know this," said Alistair, "all Grey Wardens can sense darkspawn. Whatever their cunning, I guarantee they won't take us by surprise. That's why I'm here."

Malcolm grinned at Jory. "You see, ser knight? We might die, but we'll be warned about it first."

"That isn't very reassuring," Daveth muttered from behind them.

"That doesn't mean I'm here to make this easy, however. So let's get a move on." Alistair herded them onward, past Jory's objections.

Malcolm couldn't have agreed more. He set forward, taking over point for Daveth. The others followed. They passed underneath a fallen log. Bodies hung from it, swinging in the scant breeze, the rope wrapped around their necks creaking as it moved.

"Look there," said Alistair as they walked below. "Poor slobs. It just seems so excessive."

Malcolm agreed. He'd seen his fair share of men hang—it came with the territory of being the son of a teyrn. From a fairly young age, he'd been taught about justice, and how a teyrn had to administer to justice in his realm. There had been murderers, and given sufficient evidence of their crimes, Teyrn Cousland had sentenced them to death. But in Highever, a body was always taken down once the person was dead. It never stayed up on the gallows as a warning, as murders were never so commonplace as that. And it just seemed wrong, to treat a body like that, even the body of a murderer, because even a murderer had some sort of family. Most of the time. And while a murderer might not deserve respect, his remaining family, wholly innocent, did deserve some respect.

Yet Malcolm was careful to look hard at each mutilated body to make sure none of them were Fergus. He wasn't sure what he'd do if one of the bodies turned out to be his brother, but he had to know. As the group walked up the hill, near the gap where the bodies swung from the fallen tree, they ran into their first darkspawn.

They heard them first, a deep growl, hitched breathing, almost a wheeze. But a supernatural, unreal sort of wheeze. Then the darkspawn were on them, hacking away with wickedly curved blades, firing arrows covered in filth, stabbing at them with twisted daggers. Malcolm bashed the first one with his shield, knocking him down, before spinning around and slicing another from stomach to sternum with his longsword. Ichor sprayed out from the wound, spattering on his face. An arrow appeared in the head of another, shot by Daveth, who had ranged behind them, out of the sight of the darkspawn. Jory swung his greatsword around in huge arcs, sweeping off legs and arms of any darkspawn that had the bad luck to be in the path of his blade. Alistair was at Malcolm's back, fighting like he did. The edge of his shield—the shield as much a weapon as the sword—caught one darkspawn underneath the jaw, ripping it off, along with most of its face. Ichor sailed out from the wound and landed on Alistair's splintmail.

Then it was over. Darkspawn bodies lay around them, but the humans all remained alive. Malcolm wiped at his face to try and get some of the blood off it. Alistair noticed that he'd gotten darkspawn blood on his face. "You swallow any of it?" he asked, eyebrows pulling together in concern.

Malcolm nearly gagged at the thought. "No, thank the Maker. That would be disgusting."

Something passed through Alistair's eyes, the same something that had passed through them earlier when Jory had mentioned dying as a result of tests, but he said nothing.

Malcolm didn't ask. They had a job to do, questions could be asked later. Alistair handed him a scrap of cloth to wipe his face as Jory and Daveth collected the vials of darkspawn blood. Malcolm put the cloth away in his pack. He was sure he'd need it again, anyway. "Just need to find those ruins, now," he said, looking around them. "Of course, there's ruins _everywhere_."

Alistair pointed west. "It's that way. I can sense the seals, like I can the darkspawn. We aren't far."

"Let's get going, then," said Malcolm. "I'm not eager to stay in these woods longer than I have to."

"I'm with you on that," said Jory.

They ran into another scouting party of darkspawn, but dispatched them fairly easily. Another group waited not far ahead, this one set up, as if they'd known they were coming. They had to avoid bear traps as they battled the darkspawn. An arcane bolt hit Malcolm and nearly knocked over. "They have mages?" he asked, shocked.

"Yes, unfortunately. Emissaries," answered Alistair, who then used what Malcolm assumed was a templar ability, because Alistair's arms moved wide, and suddenly a bolt of white light struck down the emissary.

"Neat trick," said Malcolm, rushing over toward the knocked-down darkspawn to finish him off before he could recover.

Alistair grinned as ran next to him. "See? The Chantry was good for something after all. Smiting things turned out to be more fun than I thought."

Daveth had reached the emissary before them and was removing his dagger from its chest as they approached. "You almost caught me with that smite, Alistair," the rogue said.

"I didn't see you there, I promise."

"I'll take that as a compliment to my abilities, then," said Daveth, wiping his knife on his leathers before putting it back in its sheath at his hip.

"As well you should. Good rogues find themselves getting caught in a Holy Smite quite often." Alistair pointed toward the top of a nearby hill. "That's where we're supposed to go, by the way. Don't bother sheathing your weapons, there's more darkspawn waiting for us."

"Fantastic," said Malcolm.

The uphill battle was more difficult than the others they'd faced. It seemed the darkspawn were being led by an Alpha of sorts and their attacks were more coordinated as a result. The tip of the Alpha's longsword managed to cut Malcolm's cheek vertically across his cheekbone, stretching almost the entire length of the cheek. Malcolm ignored the pain, hoped the taste of blood in his mouth was just his own and not anything from a darkspawn, and ran the Alpha through. Around him, the rest of the darkspawn were dead or dying. Malcolm felt at his face, relieved that his cheek hadn't been flayed open. He reached into his pack and pulled out the bandages and held one to his face to staunch the bleeding. Alistair tossed him a bandage from his own pack, one he'd gotten from the mages, he explained, that had some sort of enchantment that allowed it to stick to a wound without someone having to hold it on. "They come in very handy in battles," he said. "Well, more so after them."

Patched up enough to continue, the group entered the ruin of another long-abandoned fort. They found the chest under a pile of rubble, smashed into several pieces, with no sign of the treaties. As Malcolm sifted through the wreckage, he heard footsteps from the other side of the tower. He looked up to see a young woman saunter into their view.

"Well, well, what have we here?" she asked, continuing to make her way down the stone ramp. "Are you a vulture, I wonder? A scavenger poking amidst a corpse whose bones have long since been cleaned? Or merely an intruder, come into these darkspawn filled wilds of mine in search of easy prey?" She raised an elegant eyebrow over an exotic amber colored eye. "What say you, hmm? Scavenger or intruder?"

Malcolm stood and backed up towards the rest of his party, wary of this woman. Beautiful though she was—for there was no denying that—she could very well be a witch. And witches, he heard, were not people to piss off. "I am neither," he replied. "The Grey Wardens once owned this tower."

"'Tis a tower no longer. The Wilds have obviously claimed this desiccated corpse. I have watched your progress for some time. 'Where do they go,' I wondered, 'why are they here?' And now you disturb ashes none have touched for so long. Why is that?"

Malcolm went to answer, but Alistair stopped him. "Don't answer her. She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby."

The woman smirked. "You fear barbarians will swoop down upon you?"

"Yes," Alistair answered, "swooping is... bad."

Daveth jumped in with, "She's a Witch of the Wilds, she is! She'll turn us into toads!"

Malcolm shot a glare at him, wondering if Daveth and Jory had switched places. He'd grant that the woman could be a witch, but there was no reason yet to be quaking in their boots. Of course, there were probably a lot of intrepid adventurers who thought the very same thing up until they were toads.

The woman smiled. "Witch of the Wilds? Such idle fancies, those legends. Have you no minds of your own?" She looked directly at Malcolm. "You there, handsome lad. Tell me your name and I shall tell you mine. Let us be civilized."

He decided to be as polite as possible and attempted to channel all the civility his mother had ingrained in him since he was a child. "My name is Malcolm. Pleasure to meet you."

"Now _that_ is a proper civil greeting, even here in the Wilds. You may call me Morrigan." She paused and held her fingers to her lips for a moment before saying, "Shall I guess your purpose? You sought something in that chest? Something that is here no longer?"

"Here no longer?" Alistair's voice raised a bit, indicative of his rising temper. "You stole them, didn't you? You're some kind of... sneaky... witch thief!"

Malcolm was beginning to realize that Alistair's metaphors left something to be desired in their descriptions.

Morrigan shifted her ethereal gaze from Malcolm to Alistair. "How very eloquent. How does one steal from dead men?"

Alistair glared at her in return. "Quite easily, it seems. Those documents are Grey Warden property, and I suggest you return them."

"I will not," she said, "for 'twas not I who removed them. Invoke a name that means nothing here any longer if you wish. I am not threatened."

Malcolm decided he'd better start talking before Alistair lost his temper and managed to anger a witch. He didn't want to have to return to the camp and try to explain to Duncan why Alistair had become a toad. He imagined he'd get The Glare again. "Then who removed them?"

Morrigan's unnerving gaze returned to him. He wasn't sure if he should be happy or frightened. "'Twas my mother, in fact."

"Can you take us to her?" He could feel Alistair's glare on the back of his head, now. Better him than her, however. Less explaining to do and there would probably be less inadvertent shapeshifting.

"There is a sensible request." Morrigan laughed just a little. "I like you."

And again, Malcolm wasn't sure if he should be running to save his life or thrilled beyond belief.

"I'd be careful," Alistair said, moving to stand beside him. "First it's, 'I like you,' but then zap! Frog time."

"She'll put us all in the pot, she will. Just you watch," said Daveth.

Malcolm nearly rolled his eyes. While he might not put it past this mysterious witch to turn them into toads or set them on fire, he didn't think she was a cannibal.

Jory said, "If the pot's warmer than this forest, it'd be a nice change."

"Follow me then, if it pleases you," said Morrigan, motioning them forward as she sauntered away from the remains of the tower.


	7. Chapter 7

**7**

**Malcolm**

They followed her silently through the forest, trying to keep track of where they were heading, but they were hopelessly lost within the Wilds soon enough. Half an hour hadn't gone by before they walked into a clearing. They found themselves looking at a small shack on the shore of a pond. The shack itself wasn't so much a shack as it was a three story house on the verge of collapse against an equally broken ancient tower. He wondered if it were held together by magic. Wouldn't surprise him, otherwise it would've fallen ages ago.

An old, grey-haired woman waited for them just outside the front door.

"Greetings, Mother," said Morrigan, moving to stand behind the older woman. "I bring you four Grey Wardens who—"

The mother interrupted her. "I see that, girl. Mmmm. Much as I expected."

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Are we supposed to believe you were expecting us?"

Malcolm noticed that both mother and daughter had the same amber colored eyes. They were almost wolflike in their coloring, carrying the same natural beauty as one.

"You are required to do nothing, least of all believe. Shut one's eyes tight or open one's arms wide... either way, one's a fool!" the old woman said.

Malcolm traded looks with Alistair. Both of them were starting to suspect that the old woman was one archdemon short of a Blight.

"She's a witch, I tell you! We shouldn't be talking to her!" said Daveth.

Malcolm resisted frowning at him. Shouting that someone is a witch really didn't help matters with diplomacy. Especially if suspected witch had things they needed.

"Quiet, Daveth," said Ser Jory. "If she's really a witch, do you want to make her mad?"

Malcolm could've hugged him for that.

"Now there's a smart lad," said the old woman. "Sadly irrelevant to the larger scheme of things, but it is not I who decides. Believe what you will." She turned her gaze onto Malcolm. "And what of you? Do you possess a different viewpoint? Or do you believe as the others do?"

She could be a witch. She could just be a crazy old woman who happened to have Grey Warden papers. She could even be the Witch of the Wilds that Daveth wouldn't shut up about. He had no idea, so he went with honesty. "I'm not sure what to believe."

The old woman smiled at his reply. "A statement that possesses more wisdom than it implies! Be always aware... or is it oblivious? I can never remember." She took a step closer to Malcolm and studied his face, searched his eyes. "So much about you is uncertain... and yet I believe. Do I? Why, it seems I do!"

"Sooooo... this is a dreaded Witch of the Wilds?" asked Alistair, obviously leaning towards the batty old woman theory.

"Witch of the Wilds, eh?" repeated the old woman. "Morrigan must have told you that. She fancies such tales, though she would never admit it. Oh, how she dances under the moon!"

Malcolm's mind briefly imagined Morrigan dancing under the moon. Without clothing. He quickly had to clamp his mind down about _that_. Certainly not the time. Or place. Or woman, even, if the whole witch thing were true.

Behind her mother, Morrigan had placed a hand over her face. "They did not come to listen to your wild tales, Mother," she said, exasperated.

"True," said her mother. "They came for their treaties, yes?" She started towards the shack's front door. "And before you begin barking, your precious seal wore off long ago. I have protected these." She disappeared inside for a moment, and then came out carrying a sheaf of documents.

"You..." Alistair's indignance faded away. "Oh. You protected them?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "And why not?" She handed the papers to Malcolm, who was closest. "Take them to your Grey Wardens and tell them that this Blight's threat is greater than they realize."

Malcolm wondered how any Blight's threat could be greater than anyone would realize. It was a Blight, it couldn't get much more threatening than that. And yet, their king seemed to underestimate the power of a darkspawn horde, so what the woman said wasn't without merit. "What do you mean the threat is greater than they realize?"

"Either the threat is more or they realize less. Or perhaps the threat is nothing! Or perhaps they realize nothing!" The old woman cackled at her own joke. "Oh, do not mind me. You have what you came for."

Morrigan smiled primly at them. "Time for you to go, then."

Her mother waved her hand. "Do not be ridiculous, girl. These are your guests."

Morrigan scowled. "Oh, very well. I will show you out of the woods. Follow me."

From the way she acted, Malcolm decided she'd rather they all get lost in the woods permanently. She said nothing to them as they walked, instead silently leading them to within sight of the camp's far gate. They stood in front of it for a moment, wondering if they should just go. Morrigan suddenly walked over to Malcolm, extending her hand. He took a step backward, and then another, unsure of Morrigan's intentions.

"Do not be afraid," she said, as if calming a skittish animal. "The injury to your cheek. I can heal it. Be still."

Her long fingers carefully removed the bandage he'd placed on it hours ago. Her left hand held one side of his head, keeping him still. The other traced the line of the cut. She closed her eyes, and Malcolm felt warmth flow into his cheek. Then she opened them and studied his eyes for a moment. He stared back. He couldn't help it. She was... he had no word for it. Nothing that would fit. Something passed through her amber eyes, something he knew was mirrored in his own. Then she removed her hands and quickly took a step back. Where her fingers had been, his skin tingled.

She frowned. "You will have a very thin, light scar. I should have asked Mother to heal you, she is much better than I. My apologies. The upside is that now it will be easier to tell you and your brother apart." Morrigan smiled softly, and then took another step backward, half into the forest now. "Farewell." Then she disappeared into her Wilds as quickly as she had appeared.

Malcolm's hand found its way to his cheek. "Did that really just happen?"

"You pose an excellent question. Check your pack, if those treaties are there, I'm guessing it did happen. If not, this will be hard to explain to Duncan," said Alistair, looking just as confused.

"I think it will be hard to explain anyway." Malcolm shrugged off his pack, found the treaties inside, and held them up for confirmation. "Real."

Alistair headed through the gate. "Now that I think about it, I'm still not sure if it was real. Let's just go report back to Duncan. Maybe he can sort it all out." The other three men followed close behind him. While they were gone, the camp had picked up its activity. More soldiers practiced at the archery pits, more soldiers gathered to listen to the Chantry priests. In the main mess tent, an quasi-army comprised of only cooks made the food for the gathered soldiers. A huge bonfire burned in the center of the camp, with smaller fires around it, near each contingent's tent. Duncan waited for their group in front of the Grey Warden tent, Gunnar sitting placidly beside him. Well, placid until he caught site of his master, whereupon he launched himself to his paws and bounded towards Malcolm. On reaching him, he ran around him in circles as if he hadn't seen his master in months.

Malcolm scratched him around the ears, and then tossed him a treat he fetched from his pocket. Gunnar snatched it out of midair before trotting back to the fire to eat. After watching the mabari's antics, Duncan said, "So you return from the Wilds. Have you been successful?"

Alistair nodded. "We have."

Duncan nodded. "Good. I've had the Circle mages preparing. With the blood you've retrieved, we can begin the Joining immediately."

Malcolm looked at Alistair. "Maybe we should tell him about Morrigan and her mother." Only then did Malcolm realize that they'd never gotten the mother's name.

"Oh, right. There was a woman at the tower and her mother had the scrolls. They were both very..." Alistair trailed off, searching for the right word. "Odd." He made a face as if he word wasn't the one he'd wanted to use.

"Were they Wilder folk?" asked Duncan.

"I don't think so. They might be apostates though, mages hiding from the Chantry."

"I know you were once a templar, Alistair, but Chantry business is not ours. We have the scrolls. Let us focus on the Joining."

Duncan looked at the three recruits at the fire. "Are you ready?"

"And if we have second thoughts?" asked Malcolm, who intended to take every opportunity to get out of having to join the Wardens until it became his choice and not something forced on him.

Duncan leveled a serious look at Malcolm. "Let me be very clear on that point. You are not volunteers. Whether you were conscripted or recruited, you were chosen because you were needed. There is no turning back now. You must gather your courage for what comes next."

Malcolm scowled, even as he tried not to. For him, there hadn't been a point of turning back. He'd never been given that luxury. And he didn't see why it had to specifically be him. There were plenty of other people around who fought well and respected the Grey Wardens. Why not let them join instead of dragging him into it? It wasn't like he wouldn't stay and fight. He could easily fight with the King's men or with the Highever men in the King's army. He just wasn't sure about the whole Grey Warden thing, not after what happened.

"Courage? How much danger are we in?" asked Daveth, his face getting the same look of worry that Jory had had all day.

Duncan stared into the fire for a moment before turning to look them all in the eye. "I will not lie. We Grey Wardens pay a heavy price to become what we are. Fate may decree that you pay your price now rather than later."

Malcolm slid a look over at Alistair, remembering what Alistair had almost said earlier that day. Alistair wouldn't meet his eyes. His suspicions practically confirmed, Malcolm looked back to Duncan. "Are you saying the ritual can kill us?" he asked, finally putting a voice to the thoughts he'd had almost all along.

"As could any darkspawn you might face in battle," replied Duncan. "You would not have been chosen, however, if I did not think you had a chance to survive."

That notion didn't make Malcolm feel much better.

"Let's go then," said Daveth. "I'm anxious to see this Joining now."

Jory nodded resolutely. "I agree. Let's have it done."

"Then let us begin. Alistair, take them to the old temple." Duncan set off on his own, presumably to get whatever else he needed for the ceremony. Alistair motioned for them to follow, and led them toward the old temple, off near the edge of camp. The walk there seemed to take both forever and yet was over in an instant. Malcolm realized that it was the same place he'd found Alistair earlier, when he was delivering the message to the mage. Evening was getting closer, and the sun now touched the tops of the trees. Two solemn stone statues bearing spears stood guard on either side of the temple's entrance. Malcolm watched them warily as he stepped through the archway.

Once inside, Jory leaned against one of the broken stone pillars as they waited. "The more I hear about this Joining, the less I like it."

Daveth rolled his eyes. "Are you blubbering again?"

Malcolm resisted the urge to tell Daveth that he'd done a lot of blubbering on his own when they'd met the witch out in the woods. But he held his tongue.

"Why all these damn tests?" Jory went on. "Have I not earned my place?"

Daveth shrugged. "Maybe it's tradition."

"Maybe they're just trying to annoy you," Malcolm added. "But there's nothing we can do about it now, anyway."

"I only know that my wife is in Highever with a child on the way. If they had warned me... it just doesn't seem fair."

"Nothing is ever fair," Malcolm muttered, but more to himself than Jory.

But Daveth had taken it upon himself to take Jory to task. "Would you have come if they'd warned you? Maybe that's why they don't. The Wardens do what they must, right?"

"Including sacrificing us?"

Daveth crossed his arms and glared at Ser Jory. "I'd sacrifice a lot more if I knew it would end the Blight."

Malcolm looked from Daveth to Jory. "He's got a point." Daveth seemed the only man out of the three of them who was really meant to be a Grey Warden. Jory kept wavering on his decision, even thought it had been entirely voluntary. As for Malcolm, he was wondering if he should have done more kicking and screaming or running on the trip from Highever. Or if he should've taken that chance in Redcliffe when Isolde had kicked him out of the castle. It any time to escape had been perfect, it had been that moment. Instead, he'd wasted it and he still couldn't quite figure out why.

"Yeah, ser knight, try not to wet your trousers until the ritual starts," Daveth said to Jory.

Malcolm would have laughed had he not felt so trapped.

Jory shifted, as if his chainmail had suddenly become incredibly itchy. "I've just never faced a foe I could not engage with my blade."

Malcolm went to reply, as Jory's statement was true enough, and less indicative of cowardice than he'd acted like before. But Duncan strode into the old temple, cutting off anything Malcolm might have said.

Duncan looked more serious than he ever had before. "At last we come to the Joining," he said, walking up to the altar that held a silver goblet. He paused for a moment to look at the three recruits.

"And if we're not sure about this?" Malcolm asked, a last-ditch effort before they had to do whatever it was they were expected to do in this Joining. He had a feeling that it was something that would affect him profoundly and change him for the rest of his life. Enough so that he'd bet good coin that the instructions given to the guards to keep him from leaving camp would be rescinded.

"Since the beginning, the Grey Wardens have been charged with finding those who are strong enough to attempt the Joining and recruiting them into our ranks, for the good of all." With the last phrase, Duncan gave Malcolm a hard look. Then he continued, "The Grey Wardens were founded during the first Blight, when humanity stood on the verge of annihilation. So it was that the first Grey Wardens drank of darkspawn blood and mastered their taint."

Jory, eyes growing ever larger, stared at the goblet on the altar. "We're going to drink the blood of those... those creatures?"

Duncan fixed his solid look on him. "As the first Grey Wardens did before us, as we did before you. This is the source of our power and our victory."

"Those who survive the Joining become immune to the taint," said Alistair. "We can sense it, the darkspawn, and use it to slay the archdemon."

"Those who survive will become Grey Wardens," Duncan added.

"Those who survive?" Malcolm repeated.

Duncan shifted his raptor gaze to Malcolm. "Not all who drink the blood will survive. And those who do are forever changed. This is why the Joining is a secret. It is the price we pay. We speak only a few words prior to the Joining, but these words have been said since the first. Alistair, if you would?"

Alistair lowered his head. The others followed suit. At least, Malcolm assumed they did, but he couldn't see the others as he was looking at the ancient stones underneath their feet. "Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day, we shall join you."

They lifted their heads. Duncan took up the goblet in both of his hands. "Daveth, step forward."

Daveth took a hesitant step forward, and then another step, that one more resolute. Duncan handed him the goblet and Daveth took it without any hesitation. The rogue drank from the goblet, and then handed it back to Duncan. For a moment, nothing happened. Daveth seemed fine. Then he went into convulsions, hands grabbing for his throat, and his eyes went completely white. Daveth dropped to the ground, convulsed once more, and lay still.

With horrified eyes, Malcolm and Jory watched him die.

Duncan and Alistair also watched, but as the man passed into the Fade before them, their eyes gave in to a great sadness. Then the steel came back into Duncan's eyes and he looked at Ser Jory. "Step forward, Jory."

Instead, Ser Jory stepped backward, hand going to the hilt of his greatsword. His fingers touched the hilt lightly for a moment then he made his decision and drew the weapon. "I have a wife... a child... had I known..." He continued to back up, but found his retreat blocked by one of the many pillars that ringed the temple's dais.

Duncan's face became as stony as the statues standing guard at the temple's door. "There is no turning back."

"No," said Jory, his sword dropping into an offensive position. "You ask too much. There is no glory in this."

Malcolm looked over at Alistair. His brother looked sympathetic, but shook his head. If Jory didn't come around, there was no getting out of it.

Duncan carefully put the goblet back onto the altar and unsheathed his dagger. He left it at his side, giving Jory another chance to change his mind and finish the Joining. Jory's reply was to swing his blade at the older man. Duncan caught Jory's blade in a perfect circle-six parry, whipping Jory's blade around in a small, tight circle before guiding his own into Jory's abdomen, running him through. The maneuver brought Duncan in close to Jory, and his arms around the other man as he fell to the ground. As quick as that, Jory was as dead as Daveth. "I am sorry," Duncan whispered.

And Malcolm could see that Duncan truly was. The man had given the knight every opportunity to step forward again, even after Jory had drawn his sword. Only once he was attacked did Duncan react with violence. Yet it left him unsettled. However, it also left him with no choice but to go through the Joining. It was true. There was no backing out. Any chance he might have had to run was gone and he would have to see this through. He had to accept it. If he lived, he may not be happy about it, but he did have to accept it.

Duncan wiped off Jory's blood and sheathed his blade. Then he picked up the goblet again and turned to Malcolm. "But the Joining is not yet complete." He presented the goblet to Malcolm. "You are called upon to submit yourself to the taint. For the greater good."

Malcolm took the goblet from Duncan's hands, lifted it, and drank.

"From this moment forth, you are a Grey Warden," Duncan pronounced.

And like with Daveth, for a moment, nothing happened. Then he heard a voice sliding through his mind, a whisper that was blacker than a moonless midnight, a whisper that left a trail of blackened filth in its path. Malcolm fell backward, but he no longer saw the temple, or Duncan, or Alistair. Instead he saw a mighty dragon, a dragon calling out to him in anger, calling directly to him, as if it knew him. And then, he saw nothing.

**Duncan**

As the Malcolm dropped to the ground, fear struck Duncan, that all three of his recruits might die. That he had been horribly wrong about Malcolm and had killed Maric's youngest son. Alistair reached Malcolm first and listened for breathing. "He's alive," he said. "His breathing is shallow, but he's alive. Maker, I think he'll make it."

Duncan let out a breath. He hadn't even realized he'd been holding it.

Alistair noticed. "You were worried."

"Yes. After Daveth succumbed to the taint right away, and Ser Jory..." he trailed off as his eyes drifted to the knight's body and needed to say nothing else on the matter of Jory's decision. "I feared were to lose all three. Even though I was almost certain of Malcolm's ability to survive, I was still afraid."

"Good to know you're as susceptible to fear as the rest of us," Alistair said, moving Malcolm's body so that the young man's leg wasn't twisted uncomfortably underneath the rest of him. "I wonder how long it will take for him to wake up."

"If he hasn't awakened in an hour, we'll move him to one of the cots in the tent." Duncan found the goblet and one of the small, empty pendants. Carefully, he poured a tiny amount of the blood into the pendant, and then sealed it. Then he disposed of the rest of the liquid left in the goblet, wiping it out with a cloth rag afterward. "I need you to run down to the main camp and fetch some more Wardens to help with Daveth's and Jory's bodies."

Alistair nodded. "Right away." He took off out of the temple, firing one last glance at Malcolm's still form.

Night had fallen.

Duncan sat on one of the stone benches and kept watch to make sure the young man still breathed. His gaze wandered to Jory's body for a moment, realizing that Jory had only been the third recruit he'd had to kill due to a recruit's choice to back out at the last second. He'd given the man every chance he could, but he hadn't listened to reason. And they could not let anyone leave once they knew the secret. It would put the Grey Wardens in too much jeopardy. "I am sorry, Ser Jory," he whispered again.

Then he turned back to Malcolm, still unconscious, yet still breathing. He wondered what nightmares the boy was being subjected to as he watched, if he saw the archdemon or just the darkspawn horde, if he heard the whispers or the song. It was rare for a new Grey Warden to hear the song, even during a Blight, even when first going through the Joining. Duncan knew the song was really only heard by those who were close to their Calling, as he was. He could feel it there, hear it, in the periphery of his mind. It he did not fall in this Blight or if he wasn't the one to take the final blow to the archdemon, his Calling would be soon after.

And he knew that Alistair wouldn't handle it well, despite what he'd done to prepare him. One couldn't fail to notice that Alistair had found a family within the brotherhood of the Grey Wardens in the past six months. And he certainly had noticed how Alistair looked up to him. Duncan almost smiled at that. His younger self would scarcely have believed it to see him now. Never had he thought, in his early days of being a Warden, that he would be Warden Commander of Ferelden, that he would be alive during a Blight, or that he would have brought two of Maric's sons—both of Fiona's sons—into the ranks of the Grey Wardens.

He wondered where she was, if she were still alive. He'd last seen her a decade ago in Weisshaupt, when he'd been appointed Commander of the Grey in Ferelden. She'd congratulated him and teased him, and then, surprisingly, asked about Alistair and Malcolm. Fiona had been dismayed at Alistair's plight, at the irony of a mage's son being sent to the Chantry to become a templar. She had begged him to make sure to get Alistair away from the Chantry before he became a full templar, for her sake. Unless, she had said, her son was truly happy there. Even if he had to conscript him into the Grey Wardens, even if that conscription put him at the risk of death in the Joining. Years later, when Duncan had visited the Redcliffe Chantry, he remembered her words. He'd hoped to see the young man happy with his forced vocation. Instead, he'd seen a trapped and miserable young man who deserved better.

So, in an act as brazen as one he would've committed in his youth, he'd conscripted him away from the incensed Grand Cleric. In that act, he had saved his friend's son, and been true to his longtime friend as well.

But Fiona had asked him to merely watch Malcolm. Not to interfere, not to recruit him, even if he presented as a good recruit. By all accounts, the boy had been happy, raised as Fiona and Maric had intended, away from court, within a loving family, and thought of as a legitimate, human child.

Then there had been the Blight. And in an act that Duncan felt nearly negated what he'd done to save Alistair, he'd conscripted Malcolm. But the boy was indeed a fine recruit, one of the best candidates that he'd seen since Alistair. Had there not been a Blight, he would have left it alone. But the Grey Wardens did what needed to be done to stop the Blight. They did what they had to at all costs.

The fact that it had not resulted in Malcolm's immediate death was a small solace.

The clattering of heavy booted feet on the temple's stone floor alerted him that the other Wardens had arrived. Quietly, the others carried the two bodies away from the temple, careful to stick to shadows and away from prying eyes. Alistair remained behind. "He's not awake yet," he said.

"No."

"You... you don't think he'll stay like that, do you?" Alistair looked slowly from Malcolm to Duncan.

"He will wake up in his own time. Don't worry," Duncan said.

"Are you okay?"

"Just woolgathering." He handed Malcolm's pendant to Alistair.

he said nothing for a moment. Then, "I wonder if Cailan would survive the Joining."

"Most likely."

A frown came to the young man's face. "Daveth and Jory, they figured it out. That we were brothers, I mean. Well, Daveth did. He was an observant one. Ser Jory, not so much. Malcolm and I... we had no idea what to say. It was my fault that it came up. You see, Jory had mentioned the missing search party, and Malcolm had gotten this, well, _look_, on his face, like someone had kicked a puppy. So I told Jory to watch what he said because Malcolm's brother was in charge of that party, and Daveth immediately asked if the two of us had another brother. I was speechless. So was Malcolm, but he recovered sooner than I did. He told them that Fergus was his adoptive brother, and then basically told them to shut it."

"Sounds like you two handled it well," Duncan said.

"What about when other Wardens ask? I mean, I'm sure that lately, looking at me, and having Cailan close enough to catch more than a glimpse of him, they're putting things together. What do I do when one of them asks?"

Duncan looked up. "They won't ask."

"You're sure?"

The older man smiled. "Alistair, Grey Wardens come from many different backgrounds. The Order is full of thieves and nobles, bastards and trueborn. Everyone has a story, and not all of them are pretty. No one asks. Any information is volunteered, and then accepted without judgement. You well know that we are profoundly changed after the Joining, and every man and woman is given a chance to redeem themselves of whatever they may have done before becoming a Warden—or to forge a name for themselves when they haven't been given one to live up to."

"So you're basically telling me not to worry?"

"In so many words, yes. They may suspect, but they will never ask, and they will never judge you personally on whatever assumptions they make." Duncan was glad for this. He, himself, had been recruited in a particularly inauspicious moment in his life. He'd taken the life of a man during a botched robbery, and then man had turned out to be a Grey Warden. The man's commander turned up at Duncan's would-be execution, and conscripted him into the order right there. Against his will. It wasn't until much later that he was grateful for it.

Alistair, as was his way, continued attempting to fill up the silence that he hated. "Have there been brothers in the Grey Wardens before? I mean, natural brothers, not the brotherhood thing. You know what I mean. At least, I hope you do, because I'm not sure how else to explain it."

Duncan couldn't stop the soft chuckle. "I know what you're asking. And yes, there have. Brothers, sisters, brothers and sisters. It isn't common, but it isn't unprecedented. The first commander I ever had had joined with her brother."

"Ah," said Alistair, getting the mischievous glint in his eye that reminded Duncan so strongly of Maric. "But, have two brothers ever _also_ been the bastard sons of a king?"

At that, Duncan let out a full laugh. "No. No, I don't think so. I believe you two will be unique in that respect." Then his smile faded away as seriousness crept in. "Alistair, it will take him some time to get used to the idea that King Maric was his natural father. As much trouble as it's caused you in your life, as you grew up, you've had years to accept that fact. Malcolm has not. Add that his entire adopted family—save his missing brother—were killed in front of his eyes, and that I conscripted him against his will, the coming weeks will be a tumultuous time for him."

"And the Blight," Alistair said. "Don't forget the Blight. Ruins everyone's fun. Except maybe Cailan's."

Duncan sighed. "If it were that he could see reason in waiting as long as possible. We could retreat to another defendable position while waiting for the Orlesian Wardens and their support troops, but Loghain is fully opposed to any Orlesian help, Grey Wardens or no. That only serves to fuel Cailan's desire for a glorious battle of Ferelden against the darkspawn horde. It is an unpleasant situation."

"At least there's the advantage of Teyrn Loghain being a tried and true general. He was the one who devised most of the strategy during the Rebellion." At Duncan's surprised look, Alistair grinned. "See? I paid attention in my classes. No need for the shock."

Their conversation was cut short as Malcolm began to stir. Alistair and Duncan rushed to their feet and stood over the boy as he woke up. Malcolm sat up slowly, holding his head with one of his hands.

"It is finished," Duncan said as Alistair helped Malcolm stand up. "Welcome."

Alistair sighed. "Two more deaths. In my Joining, only one of us died, but it was horrible. I'm glad at least one of you made it through."

Duncan studied Malcolm's face closely, checking to see if he was pale or flush, for any indications of fever or illness. "How do you feel?"

Malcolm blinked a few times before focusing on Duncan. "I can't believe you killed Ser Jory."

Sorrow washed through Duncan at the waste of a life, one that he'd had to end because the man had drawn his blade instead of listening to reason. "Jory was warned that there was no turning back, as were you all. When he went for his blade, however, he left me no choice. It brought me no pleasure to end his life. The Blight demands sacrifices from us all. Thankfully, you stand here as proof that they are not made in vain."

The lad accepted the answer without comment. Duncan could see in the boy's eyes that he understood, and for once, at least in one thing, wasn't angry at Duncan.

"Did you have dreams?" Alistair asked. "I had terrible dreams after my Joining."

"Such dreams come when you begin to sense the darkspawn, as we all do. That and many other things can be explained in the months to come," Duncan warned.

Malcolm started to take a hesitant step forward, bobbed a little where he stood, and then thought better of it and stayed put. Alistair took the pendant from the altar and handed it to Malcolm. "Before I forget, there is one last part to your Joining. We take some of the blood and put it in a pendant. Something to remind us of those... who didn't make it this far."

"Take some time," Duncan said, clapping the young man on the shoulder. "When you are ready, I'd like you to accompany me to a meeting with the king."

Malcolm looked at him in askance. "What kind of meeting?"

"The king is discussing strategy for the upcoming battle. I am not sure why he has requested your presence. The meeting is to down the stairs and straight ahead. Please attend as soon as you are able." Duncan strode off toward the meeting area, thinking his new Grey Warden would follow shorty after, out of curiosity, if anything. He had spoken truly—he had no idea why Cailan wanted Malcolm present. Perhaps it was to re-evaluate the boy as a younger brother, instead of just another subject. He couldn't be certain, and there was no point in wasting time thinking about it.

As he'd suspected, Malcolm caught up with him rather quickly. The two of them walked quietly over to where King Cailan and Teyrn Loghain stood next to a table holding several maps spread over its top. "Loghain," said an annoyed Cailan, "my decision is final. I will stand by the Grey Wardens in the assault."

Loghain glared at the young king. "You risk too much, Cailan. The darkspawn horde is too dangerous for you to be playing hero on the front lines."

Duncan wished he could voice his agreement. The young king's enthusiasm was a good thing for the Grey Wardens, and for their fight against the Blight, but Cailan was putting himself at too much risk. This was not a battle for kings. This was a battle for Grey Wardens, and for men who did not have to rule nations. As much as Cailan wished he could be one, he was not.

Cailan raised an eyebrow at Loghain. "If that's the case, perhaps we should wait for the Orlesian forces to join us, after all."

Duncan nearly stopped in his tracks. It almost made sense now. Perhaps Cailan was not as much after glory as it first seemed. Perhaps he was trying to convince Loghain that waiting for reinforcements was the most prudent course of action. To Duncan, it most certainly was. There were over two hundred Grey Wardens in Orlais, and they would have the Empress's leave to bring as many Chevaliers as needed to combat the Blight. As as the Chevaliers would be under the command and pay of the Grey Wardens, there would be no thought of conquest of Ferelden. But Loghain had grown up under the tyrant rule of Meghren, the Orlesian pretender who had been appointed the Ferelden throne during the Occupation. To Loghain, any Orlesian forces, Grey Warden, Chevalier, even mercenary, was a chance for invasion and re-occupation. For all the long sight Loghain had as a general, his blind spot for Orlais remained quite significant.

It seemed part of Cailan was trying to force Loghain's hand, to put himself in enough danger that Loghain would be forced to call a wait so that the young, heirless king would not be in danger, and that his country would not be thrown into turmoil were Cailan to fall. Duncan nearly smiled. It was certainly a plan Maric would have thought of. He was always trying to get one over on the implacable Loghain.

However, Loghain remained unconvinced. "I must repeat my protest to your fool notion that we need the Orlesians to defend ourselves."

Cailan crossed his arms and shook his head at his general. "It is not a 'fool notion.' Our arguments with the Orlesians are a thing of the past." He paused and dropped his tone before adding angrily, "And you will remember who is king."

Loghain threw up a gauntleted hand. "How fortunate Maric did not live to see his son ready to hand Ferelden over to those who enslaved us for a century!"

Duncan had to admit that Loghain was going a bit overboard with the theatrics. He didn't remember him being quite this dramatic.

"Then our current forces will have to suffice, won't they?" Cailan pointed out, and then turned his back on Loghain to look over at the Grey Wardens. "Duncan, are your men ready for battle?"

The Warden Commander nodded. "They are, your Majesty."

The King fixed his gaze on Malcolm. "And this is the young lord from Highever I met earlier? I understand congratulations are in order."

"I didn't have a choice, really," Malcolm replied, yet without rancor. Duncan still despaired at the boy's behavior around the king.

Cailan smiled sadly, his golden armor glittering in the lamplight. "I suppose none of us do, but every Grey Warden is needed."

Loghain scoffed behind him. "Your fascination with glory and legends will be your undoing, Cailan. We must attend to reality."

And thus began the argument anew.

"Fine," said Cailan, "speak your strategy." The two men leaned over the maps. Cailan pointed out markers they used for the horde and their own forces. "The Grey Wardens and I will draw the darkspawn into charging our lines and then?"

"You will alert the tower to light the beacon, signaling the men to charge from cover," said Loghain, halfheartedly pointing at the marker for his troops.

A classic hammer and anvil maneuver, Duncan noted, and as Cailan had mentioned earlier. It could work, as long as Loghain's men charged at the right time. The flanking forces would wheel around, and the darkspawn horde would be crushed between the anvil of Cailan's forces and the Grey Wardens, and the hammer of Loghain's men.

Cailan nodded, familiar with strategy, though not so much as Loghain. Then again, there were very few men in Ferelden who were as adept in war strategy as the Hero of River Dane. "To flank the darkspawn, I remember. This is the Tower of Ishal in the ruins, yes?" He tapped the map with a gauntleted finger. "Who shall light this beacon?"

"I have a few men stationed there. It's not a dangerous task, but it _is_ vital," replied Loghain.

The King placed his hands on the map with finality. "Then we shall send our best. Send Alistair and Malcolm to make sure it's done."

Objections flicked in both Loghain's eyes and in young Malcolm's, but Malcolm was the first to speak. "You mean I won't be fighting in the battle?"

"We need the beacon," said Duncan, before Loghain could say anything. "Without it, Loghain's men won't know when to charge." What he didn't say was what Loghain was thinking. That Cailan was entrusting this less-dangerous task to his two younger brothers, in case he perished. And looking in Loghain's eyes, Duncan could tell how much Loghain hated the idea. But, short of waiting for the Orlesian reinforcements, or forcibly keeping Cailan back from the battle, they could do no better to ensure that Ferelden didn't fall into chaos if the battle went badly.

Cailan grinned at Malcolm. "You see? Glory for everyone!"

"You rely on these Grey Wardens too much," Loghain said with a sneer. "Is that truly wise?"

"Enough of your conspiracy theories, Loghain," snapped Cailan. "Grey Wardens battle the Blight, no matter where they're from.

_Well said, your Majesty_, Duncan thought. Out loud, he said, "Your Majesty, you should consider the possibility of the archdemon appearing." Cailan had to be made to understand what would have to be done were the archdemon to appear. That quite a few Grey Wardens would have to leave the field of the major battle to get to the top of the Tower of Ishal to face and kill the archdemon. No one else could do it. Only Grey Wardens killing the archdemon's high dragon body could end the Blight with finality. He also knew that as the eldest Grey Warden in Ferelden, he would be taking that final blow.

Loghain turned his glare from the King to Duncan. "There have been no signs of any dragons in the Wilds."

Cailan turned his own gaze on Duncan, but his was kind. "Isn't that what your men are here for, Duncan?"

"I..." Duncan started, then thought better of it. There was no use explaining the change in tactics that would have to take place were the archdemon to appear. Loghain would argue against it. They would just have to deal with it if, and when, the archdemon appeared. "Yes, your Majesty."

A mage representing the Circle at the planning meeting stepped forward. "Your Majesty, the tower and its beacon are unnecessary. The Circle of Magi—"

A Chantry priest stepped in front of the mage, holding her arm out to keep the mage from moving forward any more. "We will not trust any lives to your spells, mage! Save them for the darkspawn!"

Duncan resisted the urge to sigh. One thing the Grey Wardens never told their recruits was that getting people to cooperate to combat the Blight was often as difficult as fighting the Blight itself. Loghain pushed himself off the table. "Enough. This plan will suffice. The Grey Wardens will light the beacon."

Malcolm scowled, but Loghain had already turned away, and Cailan was looking after him. "Thank you, Loghain," said the King. "I cannot wait for that glorious moment! The Grey Wardens battle alongside the King of Ferelden to stem the tide of evil!"

Perhaps, Duncan realized, there was more of a dreaming boy in Cailan that he'd thought a moment ago.

"Yes, Cailan," Loghain called back. "A glorious moment for us all." Then he walked out of the light and into the shadows of the nearby camp.

The group he left behind watched him go. The King fell silent, his head down, contemplating the maps before him. After a few minutes, Duncan decided they were dismissed, and if the King had any more to say to them, he knew where to find them. He motioned for Malcolm to follow and headed for the Grey Warden tents at the center of camp. He had one of the other Grey Wardens fetch Alistair from the mess tent so that he could meet with the two chosen to go to the Tower. He knew Alistair would be just as unhappy about the assignment as Malcolm had been. Once both young men were before him he looked between the two of them, and then gave Alistair the rundown of the morn's battle strategy. "Alistair, it will be you and Malcolm going to the Tower of Ishal and ensuring the beacon is lit."

"What?" said Alistair, arms flying out in immediate protest. "I won't be in the battle?"

He fixed the lad with a somber look. "This is the King's personal request, Alistair. If the beacon is not lit, Teyrn Loghain's men won't know when to charge."

Alistair wasn't fooled by the excuse. Duncan could tell Alistair understood that technically, yes, the tower's beacon was an integral part of the battle strategy as a whole. However, it certainly didn't need the two of them specifically to go light the damn thing. "So, he needs two Grey Wardens standing up there holding the torch. Just in case, right?"

Malcolm looked from Alistair to Duncan. "I agree with Alistair."

Duncan frowned at them both. They weren't making his job any easier. Then again, young Grey Wardens rarely did, and that was the challenge of them. And seeing what they would grow into was well worth the frustration of youth. "This is not your choice. If King Cailan wishes Grey Wardens to ensure the beacon is lit, then Grey Wardens will be there. We must do whatever it takes to destroy the darkspawn, exciting or no."

Alistair dropped his hands as he dropped his protest. "I get it, I get it," he said, resigned to his fate. Then the impish glint appeared in his golden brown eyes. "Just so you know, if the King ever asks me to put on a dress and dance the Remigold, I'm drawing the line. Darkspawn or no."

"I don't know," said Malcolm, as if he were considering Alistair's suggestion as a valid tactic. "That could be a great distraction."

Alistair grinned. "Me shimmying down the darkspawn line? Sure, we could kill them while they roll around laughing."

This time, Duncan couldn't hold in the long-suffering sigh. When the two young men acted like this, it was like having two Marics around, tossing around sarcasm and joking whenever possible, even in moments when most normal people were deadly serious. "The battle begins before dawn tomorrow. Be sure to outfit yourselves properly. Alistair, please show Malcolm where the Grey Warden stores and supplies are kept. See to it he's somewhere to sleep, as well. Oh, and bring him to the mess tent. I'm sure he's hungry after all that."

"I'm not..." Malcolm started to protest, but he stopped. "I suppose I am hungry. Ravenous, actually, now that you mention it. Where's that tent?"

Duncan chuckled. Already, the young man had gotten the famous Grey Warden appetite. As Alistair led Malcolm to much-needed food, Duncan returned to his own tent to finish the paperwork for his last round of recruiting. Two deaths. One new, yet reluctant, Grey Warden. He hoped it would be enough in the times to come.


	8. Chapter 8

"The Old Gods will call to you,

From their ancient prisons they will sing.

Dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts,

On blacken'd wings does deceit take flight,

The first of My children, lost to night."

_—Canticle of Silence 3:6, Dissonant Verse_

**8**

**Malcolm**

"I don't see why I'm this hungry. We ate well enough on the trail before we ended up battling darkspawn," Malcolm told Alistair as they went through a line to get food. One of the harried cooks plopped what could be stew into Malcolm's bowl. At any rate, it was hot, and seemed to be edible. One his way out of the line, he grabbed a few hunks of bread to supplement the stew.

Alistair grinned. "Don't worry. It's normal."

"Normal?" They found an empty place at the tables to sit down. "What, you mean like a post-battle sort of hunger? The 'you've just exercised a lot and now you're starving' sort of hungry?"

"Oh, no, it's far worse than that. Grey Wardens eat a lot. It has something to do with the taint, I think. Welcome to a lifetime of always ready to eat everyone out of house and home."

"You lie," Malcolm said before digging into his food.

"Whatever you say." Alistair laughed and ate his own meal. Once they were finished, Alistair brought him to the quartermaster where he traded his leathers for a set of heavy mail. While the heavy mail would restrict his movement more than the leathers, they would offer significantly more protection than his other armor had. It would also compliment his sword and shield fighting style. He remembered that he was going to go with his father and Fergus to get his own heavy mail once they returned from Ostagar.

Instead, he was in Ostagar, now a Grey Warden, and pulling his heavy mail out of supplies. His sword and shield were superior to anything else the quartermaster had, so he didn't request anything else. He wouldn't have given them up anyway. Even if he found a better blade or a better shield, the Highever shield and the Cousland sword would stay with him until it could be passed to Fergus. And if Fergus was never found... Malcolm dismissed the thought quickly. Fergus would be found. He couldn't be dead. The Couslands couldn't come to an end like that. As much as Malcolm knew he had been loved as one, seen as one by his family, he hadn't shared their blood. And if Fergus died, then the bloodline would end. He didn't want to see that in any way whatsoever. He didn't believe it could happen. The Maker couldn't be that cruel.

Could He?

They walked through the camp back toward the Grey Warden tents. Malcolm noticed the mage he had met earlier, Wynne, walking along the same path. He hurried up a bit to catch up with her, to see if she could do anything about the small, thin scar left on his cheek from the battle earlier. Wynne looked over as he got next to her. "Well met, Grey Wardens," she said.

"Wynne," Malcolm said without preamble, "you don't happen to be a healer, do you?"

Her brow furrowed in concern. The mage stopped walking and moved to the side of the path, under one of the few trees within the encampment. "Why? Are you injured?" Then she kept talking, stopping Malcolm from replying. "Yes, I see. You did not have that scar on your cheek earlier, young man. Did another mage try to heal it? One not well trained?"

Malcolm didn't think Morrigan wasn't well trained, but perhaps just not as gifted at the healing aspect of magic that others were. He didn't know what to say.

Alistair answered for him. "Actually, we ran into an apostate witch in the Korcari Wilds, and before Malcolm could say no, she'd gone and healed his cheek. Well, mostly healed."

Malcolm would've glared at his brother, but Wynne had already grasped his chin in a surprisingly strong grip to hold his head still so she could study the scar. "Normally, I'd recommend staying away from apostates when you need wounds healed, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers out in the Wilds." Her fingers traced the line of the scar, but Malcolm felt none of the tingling he'd felt earlier when Morrigan had touched it. Even when Wynne summoned magic and her fingers glowed on his skin, he felt warmth, but it was nothing like when Morrigan had done the same. For the most part, he was glad. Wynne was quite grandmotherly and the feelings he kept trying not to associate with Morrigan he _certainly_ didn't want to associate with Wynne.

After a few minutes, Wynne let Malcolm's chin go, and sighed. "Well, apostate or no, the witch did as good a job as any healer could have done with that wound. Whatever blade gave it to you was enchanted, and enchanted very strongly. That witch you encountered must be very powerful to have very little of the healing arts trained in her, yet able to heal you as well as she did. That scar is as small and light as I could have gotten it even had I first tended to the wound, and I've been a healer for..." she paused, tilting her head as if counting. "Well, longer than the both of you have been alive, put together." Wynne patted Malcolm's cheek. "Don't worry. It just makes you look dashing to the young women about."

Malcolm blushed.

Wynne chuckled warmly at the reaction, while Alistair laughed. Then the mage took on a note of seriousness and addressed Alistair. "Grey Warden templar, the apostate you spoke of... do the Chantry templars need to know?"

Alistair stopped laughing and considered Wynne's question, his thoughts showing clearly on his face. "No. No I don't think so. Not now, anyway. There's a horde of darkspawn in those Wilds that needs to be fought, and the witch was benevolent for the most part. Creepy, yes, but she didn't do anything horrible. Even gave us back some Grey Warden property she'd protected. Maybe after all of this is over, if they ever appear again. If not..." he shrugged, and then looked curiously at Wynne. "How did you know I was trained as a templar?"

This time, it was Malcolm who laughed. He pointed at Alistair's shield. "The fact that you still use a shield with the templar novitiate heraldry on it kind of gives it away."

"Oh. Yes, that would do it."

"Be on your way, young Grey Wardens. Get some rest. The battle begins early tomorrow." She waved farewell, and then disappeared into the crowds of people milling about.

"Were we just sent to bed?" Malcolm asked.

"Mmmm. Yes. Yes we were. We should at least get back to the Grey Warden tents, though," replied Alistair. "We'll be staying up here in the headquarters part of the camp. Since you just went through your Joining, we have to watch to make sure that nothing has gone wrong that escaped our notice. So we have to stay close to the mages, too." Alistair resumed their walk.

"Where are the rest of the Grey Wardens if there's so few of us up here?"

"The others are camped with the King's soldiers in the valley. The King's given the Wardens a position of honor at the vanguard, despite our small numbers."

They continued on. Malcolm started wondering even more about the Wardens in general. He'd never gotten to chat with Duncan at the castle. Howe had taken care of that possibility. And then Malcolm's own silence later ruined any other chance of information from the Warden Commander. "Do the Grey Wardens have any sort of headquarters of their own? I know they're in every country in Thedas, but I assume they've got a main fort somewhere."

Alistair nodded. "Yes. The main fortress, Weisshaupt, is in the Anderfels, a great aerie carved into the white cliffs. I hear there's thousands of Wardens who live and train there. The First Warden is there, at any rate. And... it's a very long way from here. You know, those cliffs are once where they kept their griffons. But, the griffons died out, much the same as the Grey Warden numbers have dwindled since the last Blight. There's only a handful left in Ferelden, compared to all the other nations. Orlais has at least a few hundred. Here? Fifty."

Malcolm looked at his Alistair incredulously. "Just fifty? In all of Ferelden?"

"Recruiting in Ferelden is hard. Mostly because people haven't much heard of Grey Wardens, except what they hear in childhood when told of tales from long ago. The other reason is because the Grey Wardens weren't present at all in Ferelden for two hundred years on account of royally pissing off the king at the time. We're lucky with even the fifty we have, I suppose."

He didn't know what to say to that, certainly not with the unspoken admonition in the statement, so he kept quiet as they finished their walk back to the main tents. Inside, they found five more Wardens playing some sort of card game around a small table. The older Wardens nodded in greeting before going back to their game. Alistair pointed out a free cot near his own. "In case you scream like a little girl from nightmares," he explained.

"Oh, come on. Really? Screaming like a little girl?" Malcolm said, dropping his pack next to his cot. He would almost admit to rats doing that to him, but dreams? No way.

The front tent flap opened and Duncan walked in just in time to hear Malcolm's comment. "Yes," he said. "In fact, once, back in Denerim, just after Alistair's Joining, I heard screaming coming from Alistair's room. At the time, I thought he'd had a girl up there."

A shout of encouragement came from one of the other Wardens engrossed in the card game.

Alistair flushed from his neck clear to the tips of his ears. "Later, when it was already very awkward, I had to explain that instead I'd had a nightmare and had screamed like a little girl."

Malcolm burst into laughter, followed by the rest of the Wardens at the table. Alistair let his face drop into his bedroll. Duncan laughed softly before moving over to cot on the far side of the tent, picking up some papers and setting to reading.

"I hope that's enough humiliation for one day," Alistair said quietly, watching Duncan work, seemingly no longer paying attention to them.

"It wasn't _that_ bad."

"Yeah, yeah. My face still burns, you know."

"How do you think the battle will go tomorrow?" he asked, pitching his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. With how loudly the conversation at the table was, he didn't think they would be, but he wanted to be sure.

Alistair shrugged. "It's Teyrn Loghain we should be looking to win it, not the King. Cailan just wants his place in history. The teyrn is planning the strategy." He paused, thinking over what he'd said. "That's my opinion, anyway. I guess I should be thankful the King favors us Grey Wardens, but I know who's keeping the lid on the pot. I think Cailan is actually excited to ride into battle with us. Maybe...maybe he thinks it's what his father would've done."

"Considering how many battles Maric had to fight to regain the throne from the Orlesians, it's probable. But this isn't the same thing. It's darkspawn. A Blight. While the crown might _help_, it's my understanding that it's something the Grey Wardens tend to."

"You go ahead and try telling Cailan that. I'll stand back and watch," Alistair replied. "From very far away."

Malcolm lay back on the cot, meaning to keep chatting to make up for all his silence in the past week, but the softness of the bedroll suddenly pulled on him to rest. He barely heard the end of Alistair's comment before he was asleep.

He was woken up what seemed like minutes later by Alistair kicking at the leg of his cot. "Wake up," he said. "The battle is sooner than we think."

Malcolm sat up slowly. "How long was I asleep?"

"About three hours, give or take. It's the middle of the night, but everyone's sensing the darkspawn approaching. Well, the older Wardens. They can sense the darkspawn from further away than we can. We have to be a bit closer. Anyway. They're getting much closer than anyone would like, so we're heading into battle now instead of later. So get your gear together and move out." Alistair slung on his pack, followed by his sword and shield, and headed out of the tent.

After staring at the tent flap for a moment, Malcolm leapt off the cot and did the same. When he exited the tent, it seemed to be the dead of night. A storm had rolled in as he'd slept, and now thunder rumbled through the sky while rain lashed at the bonfires. Fingers of lightning crackled through darkness above them. Duncan stood next to the fire and when he saw them, he motioned them over. "You know what you have to do," he told them. "The tower is on the other side of the gorge from the King's camp, the way we can when we arrived. You'll need to cross the gorge and head through the gate and up to the tower entrance. From the top, you'll overlook the entire valley."

Behind the two young men, soldiers ran towards the exits, their equipment clattering against their chainmailed or plated backs.

"What happens if the archdemon appears?" Malcolm asked.

Alistair turned towards him. "We soil our drawers, that's what."

Duncan waited to reply until both of them were looking at him. He face was grave, and when he spoke, his voice even more so. "If it does, leave it to us. I want no heroics from either of you."

As the soldiers ran faster, and indistinguishable shouts starting calling out behind them, urging the army to assemble faster in the valley, Malcolm began to wonder just how close the darkspawn horde was getting. "How much time do we have?"

"The battle is about to begin," replied Duncan, his eyes surveying the heightening activity in front of him. "Once I leave, move quickly. You'll have less than an hour. Are you ready?"

Alistair and Malcolm nodded.

Duncan studied them solemnly for a moment before speaking. "Then I must join the others. From here, you two are on your own. Remember that you are both Grey Wardens. I expect you to be worthy of that title."

"Duncan," Alistair said quietly, almost hesitant. "May the Maker watch over you."

Duncan nodded slowly. "May He watch over us all."

Then he hefted his gear and fell into the group of people heading into the valley. Malcolm almost said something as Duncan walked away, to tell him he was mostly sorry for acting the way he had, but decided it wasn't the time or the place. He could tell him after the battle. Alistair and Malcolm started to head towards the tower. As they approached the bridge over the gorge, the storm grew stronger. They started to cross only to be taken in by the vista below them. The entire army had assembled, the archers in the far back, the foot soldiers in the front with the Ash Warriors and their dogs. Cailan and Duncan walked through the lines, giving instructions, studying the field. Then Malcolm heard a whispering, the black whisper he'd heard at the Joining, and looked up suddenly to the edges of the forest.

The horde appeared, materializing out of the mists, the trees set aflame as they passed. They growled and shouted in their guttural, wheezing voices. Then the horde surged forward, an ogre roaring at their center, all their weapons held high as they ran.

A command rang out from the Ferelden King, and the archers let loose their burning arrows. They rained on the darkspawn horde alongside the drops from the storming sky. Then the hounds were set upon the horde, ripping through the darkspawn flesh as they ran into the heart of the horde. A shout went up along the Ferelden lines, and the army surged forward to meet the darkspawn threat. With a great crash, the melee was met in the middle of the field.

On seeing it, Malcolm realized how dire the darkspawn threat was to everyone on Thedas. And he also realized what an ass he'd been in not agreeing to the duty of fighting it as a Grey Warden. A good man would have accepted Duncan's offer, no matter what the situation. He had a lot of apologizing to do once this was all over.

Shaken, Malcolm and Alistair started their run across the bridge, dodging the great, burning boulders launched from distant darkspawn catapults. One rock crashed through the largest Tevinter guardian statue on the bridge, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Another rock landed just to their right, knocking them both onto their backs. A third man who'd been running the bridge suffered a direct hit, and his body never rose from the stone. They finally made it safely across the gorge and sprinted for the tower at full speed. One of Loghain's soldiers stationed at the tower ran out to greet them, a Circle mage close on his heels, meeting them almost where the bridge ended.

"You're..." the man paused, catching his breath. "You're Grey Wardens, aren't you? The tower has been taken!"

"What are you talking about, man?" asked Alistair, his ire clearly raised. "Taken how?"

"The darkspawn came up through the lower chambers! They're everywhere! Most of our men are dead."

Alistair looked over at Malcolm. "Then it is truly up to us to get to that beacon and light it ourselves."

Malcolm nodded in agreement. The soldier ran off, but the mage stayed with them, kindly casting a flame spell on their weapons. The four of them tore through the darkspawn who dared step in their way, blood and ichor flying in all directions. An Alpha hurlock presented the greatest challenge before they could get through the doors, but simultaneous bashes from each brother's shield sent the hurlock to the ground, where the few soldiers left alive finished up the job. The two young men bounded for the tower and rushed through the doors.

Once inside, they moved through the darkspawn as economically as possible. They didn't need to kill them all, they knew, not at once. That could be mopped up later. What mattered was cutting down as many as they could, crippling as many as they could, as many as they had to, to gain them entrance to the top of the tower. Gunnar seemed to understand the task as well, trotting by mortally wounded darkspawn and continuing forward instead of finishing them off, as he normally would. They got past the first floor then past the second. As they ran up the stairs from the second to the third floor, Alistair said, "Maker's breath! What are these darkspawn doing ahead of the rest of the horde? There wasn't supposed to _be_ and resistance here!"

Malcolm looked sidelong at him. "You could try telling them that they're in the wrong place."

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Right, because clearly this is all just a misunderstanding. We'll laugh about this later."

"Well, Duncan did keep telling us to be diplomatic."

Then they were at the door to the third floor and their conversation stopped as they set about killing more darkspawn. The third floor proved to be the last, as the tower consisted largely of staircases spiraling up the interior. They opened the last set of double doors and walked out onto the rooftop, where the signal fire had already been set up, all they had to do was break the magical seal to set the whole thing aflame. Moving quietly, swords and shields drawn, they crept forward. Both of them could hear the dank whisper of a darkspawn somewhere near. They came out from behind a wall and found themselves staring at a horned ogre.

It had its back to them, and it noisily crunched on what Malcolm hoped wasn't a body, even though he knew better. Hearing their footsteps, the ogre dropped his snack before turning around and roaring at them angrily at their interruption, spittle flying in all directions. "That is _seriously_ gross," Malcolm said, and then he plunged forward with his sword. Gunnar ran in right after him.

The ogre swatted him aside with one hand, and then his hound with the other, before they could inflict any damage. Malcolm tried to tuck and roll, but he landed at an awkward angle and his leg bent oddly underneath him. His knee wrenched as he tumbled and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead at the pain.

The mage ran to a corner to try and cast a paralysis spell, but the ogre caught the movement and headed straight for the unarmored man. Alistair ran and jumped in between the them, shouting at the ogre that its mother was a Chantry priest.

Malcolm assumed that a darkspawn would be offended by that.

And apparently it was. The ogre turned its attention from the mage to Alistair, swinging at the Grey Warden with its huge, hairy fists. Alistair dodged one, and then another before managing to slice at the ogre's leg, cutting one of its tendons.

The ogre fell to its knees, but grabbed up Alistair in one of its meaty hands as it went down. The darkspawn drew back a fist and batted Alistair around as if he were merely a toy. Malcolm shouted in rage at the ogre, ignored the pain in his knee, and leapt forward, onto the ogre's back. He raised his arms over his head and plunged the longsword as deep into the ogre's skull as he could, only stopping when the hilt ground against bone. Then, putting his entire body into it, he twisted the sword.

The ogre gave a cry of anguish and fell forward, onto its face, and then went still.

All they could hear was their own breathing now. For the moment, no darkspawn lurked around them. Alistair carefully pried himself out of the ogre's fingers with Malcolm and the mage's help. "Loghain better be ready when we light this fire. The king is depending on us," he said.

Free of the ogre, he held his ribs as he stumbled forward, towards the seal. Malcolm followed. Together, they said the words to break the seal, and the pile of wood burst into flame, hot enough to almost singe them. They walked to the edge of the rooftop to watch the battle in the valley below. Duncan had been right—they did have a view of the entire valley. Just high enough to see the flow of the battle, and yet low enough to make out some individuals if they were distinct enough and not just one of the rank and file soldiers. They saw another ogre on the field, one twice as large as the one they'd just fought. "I don't like the look of it down there. They're cutting it too close," Alistair whispered.

"There's no going back on the plan now. If Loghain's forces miss the signal, our army will be smashed all along Ostagar's battlements," Malcolm replied, his fingers gripping the railing in front of him tightly. "But once Loghain's men hit them from the flank, they'll have to pay attention to two fronts, and it will be a massacre. They're too disorganized to coordinate any sort of retaliation once that happens."

Minutes went by with no addition to the numbers of Fereldens. Alistair held his longsword's handle tightly. "The horde is starting to overrun the army! Where is Loghain?"

The ogre had surged forward, wading through the darkspawn and the Ferelden soldiers, indiscriminately stamping on either that dared get in its way. It was heading for the most noticeable person on the battlefield aside from the ogre—King Cailan.

Even from the top of the tower, they could see Cailan's armor, the unbloodied parts of it still catching the light from the flashes of lightning every few seconds. A man near Cailan whipped around, white cloth swirling around his legs, who Malcolm could only assume was Duncan. But the ogre swatted Duncan violently aside, and then snatched up Cailan. As the two brothers stood helplessly at the top of the Tower of Ishal, the ogre roared at Cailan, stared at him, looked like it _crushed_ him within his huge fist, and then flung the king aside.

They saw Duncan look back at the king's still body before he leapt into action, jumping onto the front of the ogre, looking as if he were clawing his way to the ogre's head to face him, sword and dagger serving to haul him upwards. With a final stab and twist, the ogre fell. Duncan collapsed onto the ground next to the ogre's body. Within seconds, he'd gotten to his feet and limped his way over to the king, cradling his abdomen.

Then, the horde overran them. The two were lost in a sea of darkspawn, their dark, savage blades stabbing and slicing whatever it could.

Alistair yelled in anguish as the two figures disappeared, looking for a moment as if he meant to leap over the railing and attempt to fly down to the battlefield to save them.

The door from the stairway burst inward, and several darkspawn ran onto the rooftop, bows and crossbows firing immediately. Malcolm and Alistair turned to face them, just in time to catch arrows in their chests. They were sent skidding on their backs to the floor. Malcolm's head banged against the stone and he saw white.

Then he saw nothing.


	9. Chapter 9

"Those who oppose thee

Shall know the wrath of heaven.

Field and forest shall burn,

The seas shall rise and devour them,

The wind shall tear their nations

From the face of the earth,

Lightning shall rain down from the sky,

They shall cry out to their false gods,

And find silence."

—_Canticle of Andraste 7:19_

**9**

**Malcolm**

He opened his eyes, surprised to find he was doing so at all. As he blinked, trying to focus on where he was, a faintly familiar voice drifted down to his ears. "Ah, your eyes finally open. Mother shall be pleased."

Where had he heard that voice before? He stubbornly kept his eyes from blinking, forcing them to focus. He was on a bed, in a small room. A fire burned merrily in front of him, as fires were wont to do. There was no yelling, but he remembered there had been yelling. And death. A lot of death. He turned his head, searching for the source of the voice. Then he saw her, the young witch he'd met what seemed like a lifetime ago. "You. I remember you. The girl from the Wilds." His voice was scratchy, his throat dry and raw.

She noticed his and handed him a glass of water, which he accepted gladly. "I am Morrigan," she said, "lest you have forgotten. And we are _in_ the Wilds, where I am bandaging your wounds. You are welcome, by the way." She tilted her head to the side and studied him curiously. "How does your memory fare? Do you remember Mother's rescue?"

Rescue? Then it came back, what had happened before. The darkspawn horde swallowing the remaining Ferelden army whole, Duncan and Cailan disappearing from sight, his brother shouting, his own shouting, then the arrows that hit them both... "What happened to the flank?" he asked, mostly to himself.

Morrigan surprised him by knowing what he was talking about and answering. "The man who was to respond to your signal quit the field. The darkspawn won your battle. Those he abandoned were massacred. Your brother... he is not taking it well."

"My brother? You mean Alistair?" She couldn't mean Fergus. The woman had no idea about Fergus. He started searching around for his clothes.

"The suspicious, dim-witted one who was with you before? Yes. He is outside by the fire. Mother asked to see you when you awoke." Morrigan then smirked at him, reached into a nearby chest, pulled out a stack of clothing and armor, and handed it to him.

He started strapping on his armor, feeling panic rising in him even though he sense no darkspawn around. Everyone was dead. Cailan dead. _Duncan_ dead. Who was going to lead them? Teach them to be Grey Wardens? How was he supposed to tell Duncan he was sorry? Those weren't questions Morrigan could answer, but he did have a couple for her. "Are we safe here for now? What about the darkspawn?"

"My mother's magic keeps us hidden," Morrigan replied. "Once you leave, 'tis uncertain what will happen. The horde has moved on, so you might avoid it."

A frown formed on his face as he secured the straps on his boots. "How did she manage to rescue us, exactly?" _And why couldn't she have rescued the more important people—Duncan and Cailan?_

"She turned into a giant bird and plucked you from the tower, one in each talon. If you do not believe the tale, then I suggest you ask mother yourself." Morrigan graced him with small smile. "She may even tell you."

Maybe they weren't all dead. Maybe they'd had a place where they could have retreated to safety, where they could be alive. "Are there any other survivors besides us?"

Morrigan shook her head, slowly and what seemed like sadly. "Only stragglers that are long gone. You would not want to see what is happening in that valley now." Her face told him everything of the true horror that now took place on the battlefield.

He didn't ask for an explanation. He remembered what they'd come upon on the top of that tower, with the ogre... feeding... he shook his head to rid himself of the grisly image. Then he turned to one less grisly, and at the very least, pleasant to look at, even if it were glaring at him. "Thank you for helping me, Morrigan."

She seemed taken aback, as if no one had ever thanked her for anything before. "I... you are welcome. Though, Mother did most of the work. I am no healer."

"I still thank you." Fully dressed, he went to the door. "I'll go and speak to your mother now and stop pestering you."

"And I will stay and make something to eat now that I am not being pestered."

Malcolm pushed the door open and stepped outside into the sunlight. Morrigan's mother noticed as quickly as Gunnar did, who ran circles around his master as the old woman said to Alistair, "See? Here is your brother. You worry too much, young man."

Alistair spun around in his spot by the pond, and on seeing Malcolm, his eyes grew wide as a grin lit his face. "You... you're alive! I thought you were dead for sure."

Malcolm returned the smile and walked closer to the pair on the shoreline. "I'm not, thanks to Morrigan's mother."

Alistair's eyes grew haunted, as haunted as Malcolm imagined his own were. They seemed to drift away as he watched, falling into the harsh memories of the battle and its eventual outcome. "This doesn't seem real. Cailan's dead. Duncan is... dead. And if it weren't for Morrigan's mother, we'd be dead on top of that tower."

The old woman scowled. "Do not talk about me as if I am not present, lad."

At her words, Alistair seemed to snap back to the present. "I didn't mean," he started to apologize, and then stopped and tried again. "But what do we call you? You never told us your name."

Malcolm realized that, in fact, they'd never even asked.

"Names are pretty, but useless," the old woman answered. "The Chasind folk call me Flemeth. I suppose it will do."

"_The_ Flemeth from the legends?" asked Alistair. "Daveth was right. You're the Witch of the Wilds, aren't you?"

Never in his life did Malcolm think Daveth had been right. A witch, certainly. Both mother and daughter. But the legendary Witch of the Wilds, said to have lived for centuries upon centuries? Then again, he never would have believed anything that had happened to him in the past two weeks. So, in a way it made sense that they'd been magically saved by a legendary Witch of the Wilds shapechanged into a giant bird and winged them away from the tower in the nick of time.

"And what does that mean?" Flemeth asked, almost indignant. "I know a bit of magic, and it has served you both well, has it not?"

Malcolm looked at her intently. "Why _did_ you save us?" Were they just the nearest people she could easily grab? Why go out to the battle at all? Why choose them over the King of Ferelden and the Commander of the Grey in Ferelden?

"Well, we cannot have all the Grey Wardens dying at once, can we? Someone has to deal with these darkspawn. It has always been the Grey Wardens' duty to unite the lands against the Blight. Or did that change when I wasn't looking?"

Malcolm closed his eyes, hearing Duncan's parting words to them. _Remember that you are both Grey Wardens. I expect you to be worthy of that title. _"No, it hasn't changed," he said softly.

Alistair scowled at Flemeth, as if she'd insulted him. "But we _were_ fighting darkspawn. The king had nearly defeated them. Why would Loghain do this?"

"Now _that_ is a good question," said Flemeth. "Men's hearts hold shadows darker than any tainted creature. Perhaps he believes the Blight is an army he can outmaneuver. Perhaps he does not see that the evil that is behind it is the true threat."

"The archdemon," Alistair said.

"Alistair is the real Grey Warden here, not me," said Malcolm, knowing that he wasn't worthy of the title, but that Alistair truly was.

Alistair turned to him, looking desperately lost. "All the Grey Wardens in Ferelden are gone except for us. I've lost everyone. For the love of the Maker, don't back out on me now!"

Images of his father dying, his mother dying, of how he imagined them both dying as he'd left, passed through his mind. Then came the image of Cailan dying, of Duncan being overrun by the darkspawn as he tried to protect Cailan's body. "I just lost my family, Alistair," he said quietly. "I know how you feel."

"Then we have to _do_ something! I won't let their deaths be in vain. But I can't do anything on my own."

"What could the teyrn hope to gain by betraying the king?" he asked, nudging the subject in another direction.

"The throne?" ventured Alistair. "He's the queen's father. Still, I can't see how he'll get away with murder."

Flemeth rounded on him. "You speak as if he would be the first king to gain his throne that way. Grow up, boy!"

Alistair blinked at the admonition then slightly inclined his head. Flemeth had made a good point, however way she might have decided to make it. A cold surge went through Malcolm, as he realized that Alistair and he were the only Theirins left. Cailan had left no heir of his own. No, he wouldn't think about that. Others could claim the throne, just as long as it wasn't Loghain.

"If Arl Eamon knew what he did, he would never stand for it!" Alistair said. "The Landsmeet would never stand for it! There would be civil war."

Yes, Malcolm realized, there would be. If it became known that Alistair was still alive, at least half the Bannorn would demand that the direct descendent of Calenhad the Great ascend the throne. The bloodline was important to Ferelden, and even if all that remained of it was two illegitimate sons, it was still Calenhad's blood. "Arl Eamon?" Malcolm said out loud. "The Arl of Redcliffe?" He hoped the Arlessa wouldn't be there, as she wouldn't be any help at all.

Alistair paced in the small area available to him. "I suppose... Arl Eamon wasn't at Ostagar. He still has all his men. And he was Cailan's uncle." He stopped pacing and looked directly at Malcolm. "I know him. He's a good man, respected in the Landsmeet." He snapped his fingers. "Of course! We could go to Redcliffe and appeal to him for help."

"Keep in mind that Loghain was also an honorable man," Malcolm said.

"The arl would never do what Teyrn Loghain did. I know him too well. But I still don't know if Arl Eamon's help would be enough. He can't defeat the darkspawn horde by himself." Alistair resumed pacing.

"We need the rest of the Grey Wardens," said Malcolm, thinking of the Orlesian Wardens they should have waited for, the thousands of Wardens out in the Anderfels, the hundreds they could find in every other nation in Thedas.

"I don't know how to contact them or if they're even on their way. We need to do something now." And apparently, for Alistair, the answer was pacing.

"You have more at your disposal than you think," Flemeth said.

Her statement brought Alistair to another halt. "Right! The treaties! Grey Wardens can demand aid from dwarves, elves, mages, and other places. They're obligated to help during a Blight."

"I may be old, but dwarves, elves, mages, this Arl Eamon, and who knows what else—this sounds like an army to me," said Flemeth.

Alistair looked over at Malcolm, who stood still and quiet. "So can we do this? Go to Redcliffe and these other places and build an army?"

Malcolm smiled, wanting to appear more optimistic than he felt. But, when he spoke, it didn't sound optimistic. "I doubt it will be as easy as that."

Flemeth was well enough fooled. Either that or she played along. "And when is it ever?"

"It's always been the Grey Wardens' duty to stand against a Blight." Alistair nodded resolutely. "And right now, we're the Grey Wardens."

All he really wanted to do was wake up from this nightmare, not go out and drum up an army to fight darkspawn. He wondered if he looked as absolutely miserable as Alistair did and glanced over at him. Alistair had drifted away again, staring somewhere off in the distance, probably reliving those last moments of the battle as much as Malcolm had been. Yes. Most likely he did. Gunnar shoved his head underneath his hand and Malcolm absently scratched behind the warhound's ears. He figured the dog must have tracked them or that there'd been more to his rescue than Morrigan and Flemeth let on. Actually, he was positive that there was more, much more, but doubted he'd ever learn what any of it was.

The old woman took a step closer to both young men and studied them even closer. "Ever eager are you to be Grey Wardens, but that is not your only task."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Yes, there's that whole 'travel all over Ferelden and gather an army' part, which usually isn't under the provision of Grey Warden business, or so I hear."

"Do not play with me, boy," Flemeth said, delivering a scathing glare to Malcolm. "You know exactly what I'm talking about it. I saw it on your face earlier as you considered it, and then dismissed it in an instant. When this Loghain quit the field, he made a play for the throne of Ferelden. A play that, as Alistair said, will lead to civil war."

Malcolm knew exactly where Flemeth was going, and knew that when they spoke with Arl Eamon, it was exactly where he would go, too. His eyes got wider, terrified at the prospect, wanting no more than to fight the entire vanguard of the darkspawn than have to do what this woman, what Arl Eamon and half the bannorn, were going to ask of him and Alistair. Especially Alistair.

Flemeth pointed to each of them in turn. "Ferelden will never be able to defeat the darkspawn while divided. And no matter what you say, the Bannorn will not allow the throne to go to Loghain while any blood of Maric the Savior still lives. You are all that's left of Ferelden's royal line. Like it or not, you are the bastard princes, and you must wrest the throne away from Loghain."

Alistair's face had gone pale. "You can't be serious," he said. "Truly. You can't be serious." He looked helplessly at Malcolm. "She can't be serious. Can she?"

Malcolm opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't think of a thing to say to help Alistair. But he did think of something to say to Flemeth. "How did you know?"

Another cackle flew from her lips. "It is written on your faces, in your past and in your future, young princes."

"Please don't call us that," Malcolm said immediately.

The old woman raised her eyebrows, acting surprised. "But there is no point in hiding from the truth."

"Yes, there is,"said Alistair. "Oh, yes there is."

Malcolm crossed his arms. "You didn't answer my question."

"I suppose I didn't, did I?" She laughed again. "I once met King Maric in these Wilds, long ago, when he was a lad around your ages. Somewhere between them, I think. You much resemble him, both in looks and personality. He was hopelessly lost in these Wilds, desperately trying to find his way through to his rebel army. He had his friend with him, a man he called his best friend. I warned him. I warned him as soon as I could, that if he kept Loghain close he would betray him more than once, each time worse than the last. He didn't heed my warning. You see, he had faith in his friend. Me, I had faith in my ability to see what would happen. No one ever listens to me. More's the pity. But here is my answer in truth—I knew you for who you were before you even stepped into my field of vision. But I know a bit of magic, and you do not, so I cannot explain more than that."

Neither of the young men had an answer for her, for there was none.

"You know what you must do," she said. "Now before you go, there is yet one more thing I can offer you."

Malcolm was tempted to reject it out of hand. Before he or Flemeth could say anything, Morrigan exited the shack and strode over to where the small group stood. "The stew is bubbling, Mother dear," she announced, and then cast an imperious gaze at Alistair and Malcolm. "Shall we have two guests for the eve, or none?"

Flemeth turned to her daughter. "The Grey Wardens are leaving shortly, girl. And you will be joining them."

"Such a sha—what?" Morrigan did a double-take and stared at her mother in shock.

"You heard me, girl. The last time I looked, you had ears!" Flemeth cackled again, more unsettling than the last time.

Looking from daughter to mother, and realizing that Morrigan seemed more than opposed to going with them, Malcolm said, "Thank you, but if Morrigan doesn't wish to join us, she doesn't have to." He clearly remembered how he'd been forced into joining the Grey Wardens and had no wish to make anything do something they didn't wanted, especially when it looked like it would be a long, hard journey.

"Her magic will be useful," said Flemeth. "Even better, she knows the Wilds and how to get past the horde."

Malcolm couldn't argue with that. He traded looks with Alistair, who shook his head slightly. No, he wasn't sold on the idea yet.

"Have I no say in this?" Apparently neither was Morrigan.

"You have been itching to get out of the Wilds for years. Here is your chance." Flemeth turned back to Malcolm and Alistair. "As for you, Wardens, consider this repayment for your lives."

Malcolm really didn't want to try to figure out the details on that idea. He wasn't entirely sure who was paying whom in the deal. "Was this your idea all along?"

Flemeth scoffed. "Pardon me, but I had the impression that you two needed assistance, whatever the form."

Malcolm wanted to argue, but, well, they did need the help.

Alistair finally spoke up. "Not to... look a gift horse in the mouth, but won't this add to our problems? Out of the Wilds, she's an apostate."

"If you do not wish help from us illegal mages, young man, perhaps I should have left you on the tower," Flemeth said, looking as if she'd shapeshift into a giant bird right in front of them, pick them up with her talons, and put them right back where she found them.

"Point taken," Alistair said quickly.

"Mother," said Morrigan, "this is not how I wanted this. I am not even ready—"

Flemeth interrupted her protest before it could even truly get started. "You must be ready. Alone, these two must unite Ferelden against the darkspawn. They need you, Morrigan. Without you, they will surely fail and all will perish under the Blight. Even I."

The indignance fell away from Morrigan's eyes. "I... understand."

The old witch turned her all-seeing eyes towards the Wardens. "And you, young princes?" Both Alistair and Malcolm flinched, but the woman ignored their reaction as she had their protests. "Do you understand? I give you that which I value above all else in this world. I do this because you _must_ succeed."

"I understand," Malcolm said softly. Alistair said the same.

"Allow me to get my things, if you please," Morrigan said, and went off in a huff into the shack. She emerged a few minutes later, pack in hand, a bedroll lashed to it. "I am at your disposal, Grey Wardens," she said, standing in front of them. "I suggest a village north of the Wilds as our first destination. 'Tis not far and you will find much you need there. Or, if you prefer, I shall simply be your silent guide. The choice is yours."

The idea of Morrigan, or anyone journeying with him, being silent unnerved Malcolm enough that he said, "No, I prefer you speak your mind." Then he felt like an idiot because he'd done exactly that to Duncan for over a week—been silent.

Flemeth laughed, a real laugh, not like one of the many cackles she'd had before. "You will regret saying that."

"Dear, sweet Mother," said Morrigan, looking as if she meant the opposite of those two descriptions, "you are so kind to cast me out like this. How fondly I shall remember this moment."

"Well, I always said if you want something done, do it yourself, or hear about it for a decade or two afterwards," Flemeth replied, making no sense at all.

Malcolm glanced over at Alistair to see if he'd understood it. He was frowning.

"What is it?"

Alistair sighed and studied his boots intently. "I just..." He looked up. "Do you really want to take her along because her mother says so?"

They had to face the truth, or at least a part of it they could bring themselves to face. "We need all the help we can get."

"I guess you're right. The Grey Wardens have always taken allies wherever they could find them." Alistair made a face like he'd taken a sip of soured milk as he said it, though.

"I am so pleased to have your approval," Morrigan said.

Malcolm hadn't even realized she'd been listening.

The young witch turned back to Flemeth. "Farewell, Mother. Do not forget the stew on the fire. I would hate to return to a burned down hut."

Flemeth blew her off. "Bah. 'Tis more likely you will return to see this entire area, along with my hut, swallowed up by the Blight."

Malcolm, who had been studying the state of his heavy chainmail, trying to give them privacy, looked up sharply. He managed to look up just in time to see the hurt dash across Morrigan's face before she could get it under control. "I... all I meant was..."

"Yes, I know," said Flemeth, managing to sound kind despite how she'd just treated her daughter's feelings. "Do try to have fun, dear."

Morrigan spun and turned her back on her mother. Without a word to the two Grey Wardens she was to accompany, she stalked into the Wilds that ringed the hut. Alistair and Malcolm looked at each other and shrugged. Then they quickly ran after her, lest she leave them behind and hopelessly lost. Which Malcolm didn't doubt she would do, if given the chance.


	10. Chapter 10

**10**

**Malcolm**

They spent most of the day in silence, each of them mired in their own thoughts and paying barely enough attention to their surroundings to avoid getting eaten or tripping and breaking an ankle. Only once did they sense any darkspawn, and Morrigan quickly and deftly got them away without a skirmish. Due to making such good time, they traveled for a while on the highway until the sun had set before making camp. Alistair and Malcolm unrolled the bedrolls reasonably near each other and built a fire out in front. They would have to get tents in Lothering, the village Morrigan had mentioned. Morrigan, being Morrigan, set up her own tent some distance away. She was still visible by the light of the fire, but made her own fire as well. Malcolm and Alistair exchanged looks but shrugged and didn't question it.

Alistair volunteered to cook and made something that looked barely edible. They politely offered some to Morrigan, who rapidly turned it down. Malcolm didn't blame her in the least. They ate, using eating as an excuse not to talk, and then they sat and stared at the fire. As soon as he had nothing to do, the panic rose within him. He wasn't even a real Grey Warden, how was he supposed to help Alistair accomplish all that needed to be done? They needed other Grey Wardens, but they were all so far away. Or dead.

Dead. How could Duncan die? He knew, in the reasonable part of him, that Duncan would had to have died at some point. But the man had just conscripted him into the Grey Wardens. Malcolm had barely time to realize he shouldn't be angry with him when he went and died. It felt like abandonment, and from the looks of Alistair, he felt just as scared and alone.

"Where are the nearest Grey Wardens from here?" Malcolm asked suddenly.

Alistair blinked, as if he'd forgotten anyone else had been there. "There's plenty in Orlais, but who knows where they might be found. Duncan... Duncan had told me they'd sent messages that a couple hundred of Orlesian Grey Wardens and some four companies of the Orlesian cavalry were on their way, but it would've taken weeks for them to get into Ferelden, much less all the way to Ostagar. If we were to go across the sea, there's bound to be some in the Free Marches. But, I just don't know where. I don't know how to contact them, either. I don't know anything about Grey Wardens in other lands. That's what Duncan, what all the senior Grey Wardens were for. We were just supposed to follow."

If only they still could. "Is there a headquarters somewhere? Is there anywhere we could go for help?"

"Here in Ferelden, we had a compound in Denerim, at the palace. That's where the Wardens in Ferelden based their operations. It's where I spent almost all of my time in the Order, actually. I have... good memories of that place. No doubt Loghain will have control over that now, and be watching it closely. Beyond that, there's the main headquarters for the Grey Wardens in the Anderfels, but that's over a thousand miles from here. Added to that, I don't know how to contact them. So unless we try to get back to the compound in Denerim, I suppose the answer is no. There's nowhere for us to go."

Malcolm closed his eyes. The past few weeks seemed like such a nightmare. Every time he closed his eyes, he expected to open them and find himself back in Highever, in his own bed. His parents would be alive, he wouldn't be a Grey Warden, he would still have wanted to join the Wardens, he wouldn't have known he was a bastard prince, Duncan and Cailan would still be alive... and yet, whenever he opened his eyes, none of that was true. Not any longer.

"You aren't going to leave, are you?" Alistair asked.

Malcolm opened his eyes. "No. I said I would stay. I didn't have a choice, anyway, not since the beginning of all this."

Alistair sat up straight and glared in Malcolm's direction. "So you stay because you think you're trapped? That I've conscripted you just as much as Duncan did?"

"That's not what I said." This was part of why he hadn't spoken to Duncan for so long. He hadn't wanted to say things he'd regret. Of course, he'd ended up saying the wrong thing and making Alistair just as angry with him as he'd been at Duncan. And he didn't think Duncan had been truly angry with him. Exasperated, absolutely, what with the escape attempt. Annoyed, certainly, especially when he'd snapped at the king like he had. But he'd seemed to have infinite patience and that had convinced Malcolm that he'd have an infinite amount of time to come around.

Alistair looked like he wanted to say more, but his eyes shifted toward where Morrigan stood near her tent, tending to some sort of potion or whatever it was a witch did in the evening. So he said nothing. Instead, he started going through his pack, taking stock of what he had. Malcolm decided he'd go to sleep and leave first watch up to one of the others. Alistair's anger would keep him awake anyway. Perhaps he'd even kill him as he slept and he wouldn't have to worry about this giant mess after all. He heard Gunnar pad his way over toward the fire from checking the perimeter. But he was asleep before the warhound was even halfway there.

_The dragon's head rose quickly, its eyes on him, and no matter where he moved, the dragon watched him. There were a hundred voices, a thousand, the dark whispers that tainted whoever heard them surrounding him. The dragon pulled back and opened its maw, roaring its outrage into his face, that he, a mere human, would have the audacity to hear it_.

Malcolm's eyes snapped open, revealing a pre-dawn sky. No dragons. He sat up suddenly, his head turning at the same time to make sure he was in camp. And not... wherever he had been during that dream.

"Bad dreams, huh?" came Alistair's voice from the other side of the fire.

Malcolm stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he didn't see him at first. "It seemed so real."

Alistair tilted his head to the side, looking, at least for the moment, sympathetic to Malcolm's plight. "Well, it is real. Sort of. You see, part of being a Grey Warden is being able to hear the darkspawn. That's what your dream was—hearing them. The archdemon it... _talks_ to the horde and we feel it just as they do. That's why we know this is really a Blight."

He'd already had problems sleeping since he'd left Highever. And now an archdemon? He wasn't sure if he'd ever sleep again. "Are these dreams going to happen a lot?"

"It takes a bit, but eventually you can block the dreams out. Some of the older Grey Wardens say that can understand it." Alistair shrugged. "I sure can't."

Alistair's sympathy surprised Malcolm, considering how angry his brother had looked when he'd gone to sleep. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I appreciate it."

The other man grinned. "That's what I'm here for! To deliver unpleasant news and witty one-liners." Then he got to his feet. "Now that you're up, we might as well start for Lothering. I don't know about you, but after waking up from one of those nightmares, I can't get back to sleep. And part of me always feels like running, because in those dreams, it's like the archdemon can see you, see right into you and through you and knows where you are. That makes my feet itchy to get moving." He lashed his bedroll to his pack as he talked.

On the other side of the small campsite, they could see Morrigan taking down her tent.

Malcolm gathered up what he had of his own gear before shouldering his pack. The three of them shared a breakfast on the road, some sort of trail mix of fruit and toasted grains Morrigan had produced from her gear. It was infinitely more tasty than what Alistair had cooked up the night before and Malcolm ate it without question. Alistair ate the food, but shot Morrigan suspicious glances the entire time, as if he expected to drop dead from poison at any moment. Or he wanted Morrigan to drop dead. Malcolm was having a hard time telling the difference.

The travelers moved north on the Imperial Highway until they came to the crossroads with the West Road. Lothering stood around the crossroads themselves, a small town built for trade and travelers from the Hinterlands, Southron Hills, Redcliffe, and Denerim as they passed through the crossroads. The steadiness of the walking had lulled Malcolm into thought and he didn't notice the men blocking the way off the old highway until they'd spoken.

"Wake up, gentlemen, more travelers to attend to," said a man who appeared to be in charge. He pointed at Malcolm. "I'd guess that fellow is the leader."

Malcolm had no idea why they would guess such a thing. Alistair was older and the senior Grey Warden. And if they wanted to go by the technicality of Flemeth's other mission, Alistair was still the elder brother. If there were any leader, it should be Alistair.

The thickly muscled man standing next to the leader studied them for a second, then his eyes went wide. "Uh, they don't look much like them others you know," he told his leader slowly, "um... maybe we should just let these ones pass."

The man might have sounded on the slow side, but it seemed to Malcolm that he was much smarter than whoever this man in charge was.

"Nonsense," the man told his subordinate. "Greetings, travelers!"

Gunnar responded with a growl.

"Highwaymen," Alistair whispered. "Preying on those fleeing from darkspawn."

Morrigan scoffed and didn't bother keeping her voice down. "They are fools to get in our way. I say, teach them a lesson."

In support, Gunnar took a step forward, hackles raised, ears sleek against his skull, teeth bared. Malcolm quickly put a hand onto Gunnar's back so he wouldn't jump forward immediately out of protectiveness.

The highwayman leader put his arms out. "Now, is that any way to greet someone? Just a simple ten silvers and you're free to move on."

With the amount of coin Malcolm's mother had managed to give him before Duncan had dragged him away, ten silvers wasn't much of a dent. But, they had much to do, much to outfit themselves for, and who knew how long this entire journey would take. Besides that, the men were bandits, exploiting the weak, on people fleeing for their lives. Arl Howe had preyed on them as they were distracted by the darkspawn. Teyrn Loghain had used the darkspawn to ensure King Cailan's death and take the throne. He couldn't do anything about them right now. He would, but not then. But these men, _these_ men were right in front of him, obstinate and unaware of just how deep his rage ran. He flexed his fingers, readying himself. "You should listen to your friend," Malcolm said, keeping his voice even. "We're not refugees."

Far from it.

The one who talked slowly but thought faster, turned toward his leader. "What did I tell you? No wagons, no horses, no children, and they look armed."

The leader scoffed. "The toll applies to everyone, Hanric. That's why it's a toll, and not say, a refugee tax."

"Oh, right." The slow one turned to Malcolm's group. "Even if you're no refugee, you still gotta pay."

"Forget it," Malcolm said, "we're not paying."

The leader put his hands on his hips. "Well, I can't see I'm pleased to hear that. We have rules, you know."

"Right!" the slow one said happily. "We get to ransack your corpses, then. Them's the rules."

Malcolm found himself laughing. "You can certainly try." Then he grabbed his shield and drew his sword.

"Well, this is going nowhere. Let's finish this, gents!" the leader ordered before stepping forward to engage them in battle.

In the end, it was more of a mockery than a battle. Malcolm relished the combat, releasing his anger into the explosive movement of his sword, the tactics of his shield. Each strike was for someone or something he had lost. And he had many strikes to give. In moments, it was over, and the bandits lay dead or dying. Malcolm felt almost disappointed. He and Alistair cleaned their blades and sheathed them after putting away their shields. Morrigan simply kept her staff in her hands. At least, Malcolm assumed it was a staff and not just some random stick from the Wilds. He'd seen her use it to produce some of her spells, but the damn thing just _looked_ like a large, fallen tree branch. Not that he'd ever tell her that.

"There it is," Alistair said as they strode down the ramp into the outskirts of the village. "Lothering. Pretty as a painting."

Malcolm stopped and turned around, eyeing Alistair quizzically. It had been the first real remark he'd made in hours.

"Ah! So you finally decided to rejoin us, have you?" Morrigan said. "Falling on your blade in grief seemed like too much trouble, I take it?"

Alistair glared at her. "Is my being upset so hard to understand? Have you never lost someone important to you? Just what would you do if your mother died?"

The question—which, had it been asked of anyone else, would have been logical in trying to garner sympathy—merely sent Morrigan into near giggles. "Before or after I stopped laughing?"

The former templar shifted uncomfortably. "Right. Very creepy. Forget I asked."

"You have been very quiet, Alistair," Malcolm found himself saying. He'd figured that after last night, Alistair would have yelled at him. He saw it behind the other man's eyes, the questions, the accusations. But nothing had come out. Not yet.

"Yes, I know. I was just... thinking."

"No wonder if took so long, then," Morrigan said, unwilling to leave Alistair alone.

Alistair glared at her again and went for mocking. "Oh, I get it. This is the part where we're shocked to discover that you've never had a friend your entire life."

"I can be friendly when I desire to. Alas, desiring to be more intelligent does not make it so."

Alistair dropped his glare and turned to Malcolm. "Nevermind. I was only wondering what we were going to do. Well, where we were going to go after, since I assume we'll be trying to supply ourselves here. Horses would be good."

"Can you ride?"

"I can ride when I don't fall off. I, um, do that sometimes."

"And just how many times did you hit your head when you fell off these horses?" Morrigan asked. "Five? Ten?"

Malcolm ignored the comment as he looked over at her. "Morrigan, can you ride?"

"You doubt my prowess?" she asked, raising an elegant eyebrow.

He knew exactly what she was implying and he blushed. "That isn't what I meant," he told her.

She smirked at him. "I was talking about my capabilities in a saddle. I can ride. In fact, I can ride and not fall off. What were _you_ talking about, my dear Malcolm?"

"Nothing. Nevermind." He quickly turned back to Alistair, unwilling to look at Morrigan anymore. "I'd like to talk to Arl Eamon first. I'd just feel... safer, knowing he was helping."

Alistair nodded. "Yes. I feel the same way." Malcolm saw something move through his eyes then, the wisp of a feeling, but it moved too quickly for him to discern. "Maybe he'd even take charge. That would be nice."

"Yes. Yes it would." Nothing else left to be said, at least nothing he really wanted to get involved in, he started into the town. Refugees had pitched tents and temporary shelters along all of the open fields from the town proper to the edge of the stones of the crossroads. They jammed into every available space, barely leaving enough room for people to get by. The group carefully made their way through. No one stopped them from entering the town, but one templar questioned them—thankfully, not about Morrigan, but their intentions in town. A warning, really, that there wasn't any room. Something that was painfully obvious to anyone who looked.

"It's just a guess, but I think everyone in Lothering is aware of the approaching darkspawn horde," Alistair said.

"You'd think they'd be fleeing and not setting up camp here," Malcolm said.

Alistair shrugged. "Maybe they think someone will stop them?"

The image of Duncan being overrun by the horde passed through his mind. There was no one left to stop them. Loghain had taken care of that. "The time for that has gone."

Alistair didn't reply. He didn't need to. He knew.

They found one merchant with extra horses just outside the Chantry's walls, arguing with a crowd of refugees with a Chantry priest at the head of them. Malcolm, knowing that they'd have to deal with the man themselves afterward, waded in to help. After a few minutes, they were able to negotiate decent prices for everyone. Morrigan had objected to helping but took back the objections when Malcolm told her they'd have to get supplies from that merchant, too. Four decent looking horses, three to ride, one to carry equipment, extra tents, various food supplies. More than enough to get them to Redcliffe. That settled, Malcolm found a spot to tether the horses. He left Gunnar next to them. "Guard."

Gunnar barked his reply, always happy to do so. The horses didn't look uncomfortable around the dog, which was a good sign. Good Ferelden horses, then. Used to warhounds. Malcolm wanted nothing more than to ride for Redcliffe at top speed, but they had to find out what was going on in the rest of Ferelden. With Lothering being a crossroads, it would be the best place of any close enough to give them news. Now he just had to find the damn tavern. He headed for the sounds of shouting and drunkenness on the other side of a small bridge.

Two men stood underneath a sign that read "Dane's Refuge." Had to be the tavern. Or inn. Or both. Either way, that was the place they were looking for. As they got closer, Malcolm heard the men talking. Something about how Teyrn Loghain had told everyone that the Grey Wardens had betrayed the king and they had all died at Ostagar and the Grey Wardens had gotten all that they'd deserved.

Malcolm had to fight with himself to keep from drawing his sword and forcibly making the man take it back. It wouldn't change anything, and it would certainly only help prove Loghain's point. So he ignored them and he and Alistair and Morrigan ducked inside the tavern.

The place was packed. Malcolm couldn't figure out how people moved about in this place, but they did. Before they could take more than a few steps inside, a man wearing scale armor practically jumped up from his seat and strode over to them. Three more men stood up behind him, also armored, and armed. "Well, look what we have here, men. I think we've just been blessed."

"Uh oh," Alistair said. "Loghain's men. This can't be good."

Then Malcolm noticed the heraldry on the shield of one of the armored men. Alistair had seen it before he had, but there was no doubt—it was the symbol of the Teyrnir of Gwaren. So they were some of the men who had left King Cailan and Duncan to die.

The one with the shield looked at the first man. "Didn't we spend all morning asking for some fellows by this very description? And everyone said they hadn't seen them?"

The first man, apparently the leader, frowned. "It seems we were lied to."

Malcolm remembered Loghain saying he never forgot a face and it seemed the descriptions he'd given people must have been very accurate for those men to recognize them that quickly. Then again, they had been at Ostagar, even if they hadn't stuck around for the battle—their very retreat losing the battle for everyone. He also took note that from what the gossipers outside had said, and how the soldiers acted in here, Loghain had gone after him and Alistair as Grey Wardens. Not anything else.

A Chantry sister negotiated her way through the crowd from her place at the fire and moved in between the two groups. Around them, people started moving away, pressing themselves against the walls as best they could. "Gentlemen," said the red headed woman, "surely there is no need for trouble. These are no doubt more poor people seeking refuge."

"They're more than that," Loghain's man said, shoving a fist in the sister's face. "Now stay out of the way, Sister. You protect these traitors, you'll get the same as them."

Malcolm looked at the Chantry sister. "Looks like he wants a fight." He turned to the leader. "I'm happy to oblige." Just as happy to oblige as he had been with the highwaymen outside. He did, after all, have a lot of anger to work out.

"Right," said another one of Loghain's men. "Let's make this quick."

Malcolm's group made it quick. The Chantry sister, somehow having found a mean-looking dagger, even jumped into the fray. Within minutes, with one of his men dead and two more gravely injured, the leader yielded. "All right. You've won. We surrender."

"Good," said the Chantry sister. "They've learned their lesson and we all can stop fighting now."

Malcolm's hand worked on the grip of his sword, the leather creaking as his fingers moved. One movement and this man, one of the many who had left so many others to die at Ostagar, would be dead. The muscles worked under his skin for want of being used to exact payment from this man. Then another hand was on his forearm, as if to stay his impulse. He turned slightly to see that it was Morrigan's, and she was shaking her head, telling him to let the man go. It didn't seem a very Morrigan-like thing to do, but perhaps she knew, or saw, something he didn't. He gave her a slight nod, and she removed her hand. For some reason, he missed it when it was gone.

With the tip of his blade at his throat, he looked steadily at the leader of Loghain's men, allowing all his anger and outrage to show on his face, his barely restrained temper. "Take a message to Loghain."

The man's adam's apple moved up and down as he gulped. "What... what do you want to tell him?"

Malcolm brought his face closer to the man's. "That the throne of Ferelden is not his to take," he whispered. "And that if he wants to kill Maric's last two sons and heirs, and then wipe out all of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden, he'll have to do better than this." He slowly withdrew the blade from the man's throat and stood up.

"What did you tell him?" Alistair asked.

"Later," Malcolm said, staring at Loghain's man, who was now carefully getting to his feet. "Well?"

"I'll tell him. Right away! I'll go right now! Thank you!" The man bowed, to Malcolm's surprise, and then scurried out of the tavern.

Malcolm let out his breath. Loghain had sent the message out that the Grey Wardens were traitors to the dead king, and that any of them remaining were to be killed. That, along with descriptions of him and Alistair, it appeared. So Loghain knew they survived, or had at least suspected, since they'd been in the Tower of Ishal, one of the more likely places to live through the battle. It also appeared Loghain was acting in more of a political capacity than he and Alistair had thought, and yet Flemeth had suspected as much. In naming him and Alistair as Grey Wardens only, and not a threat to usurp throne of Ferelden, he had made sure not to threaten his own claim to the throne, however tenuous it might be. If the Bannorn didn't know two heirs still lived then they wouldn't object as much to Loghain assuming the throne. Malcolm wished there were a way to separate the two issues of Grey Wardens and bastard princes, but with both him and Alistair being Wardens, nothing could be done. Just as nothing could have been done to prevent him from becoming a Grey Warden weeks ago. Or days ago. He couldn't tell anymore. It just all felt like forever.

The Chantry sister's voice, sounding very Orlesian, interrupted his train of thought. "Let me introduce myself. I am Leliana, one of the lay sisters of the Chantry here in Lothering. Or I was."

Around them, the tavern-goers had moved away from the walls, back to their tables, and resumed their interrupted conversations. "What does that mean?" Malcolm asked.

"I joined the Chantry to live a life of religious contemplation, but I am no priest, or even an initiate."

Malcolm resisted the urge to sigh loudly. He knew perfectly well what a lay sister was. He'd wanted to know about the 'I was' bit, but noticing the slightly addled look in the sister's eyes, decided he wanted the least amount of conversation with her as possible. "And is there something you wanted from me?"

"Those men said you're a Grey Warden. You will be battling the darkspawn, yes?" She didn't give him a chance to answer, just continued talking. "That is what Grey Wardens do. I know after what happened you'll need all the help you can get. That's why I'm coming along."

"Wait, what?" He had to put a stop to this. "These men were mistaken. I am no Grey Warden."

Leliana looked crestfallen. "But... oh, I see, of course. Shall we move on, my completely ordinary and unremarkable friend?"

When had he become her friend? Did people just decide these things without his consent all the time? "Why do you want to come with me?" he asked, regretting it even as he did so.

The woman smiled. "The Maker told me to."

He resisted the urge to step back. "Can you... elaborate?"

Leliana held her hands out. "I know that sounds absolutely insane, but it's true. I had a dream. A vision!"

To Malcolm, it seemed like this Leliana fully believed in whatever it was she'd seen. He turned to Alistair to get his thoughts on the matter. He'd been brought up in the Chantry. Maybe he'd know if this woman was insane or just devout. Or both.

"More crazy?" Alistair said. "I thought we were all full up."

That settled that. Insane, then. Well-meaning, certainly. But insane.

"Look at the people here," Leliana said, trying to support her position in wanting to join them. "They are lost in their despair, and this darkness, this chaos, will spread. The Maker doesn't want this. What you do, what you are meant to do, is the Maker's work. Let me help."

It wasn't the argument itself that convinced Malcolm, but something else entirely. It was the accent that said all of those words. So prettily, so Orlesian. And Loghain _hated_ Orlesians. If anything, he would have this half-crazy woman travel with them just to piss Loghain off. Yes. She could join them. "Very well. I won't turn away help when it's offered."

"Perhaps your skull was cracked more than Mother thought," Morrigan muttered from behind him. He ignored her. He'd just explain later.

Leliana's face lit into a huge grin. "Thank you! I appreciate being given this chance. I will not let you down."

At least she didn't hug him.


	11. Chapter 11

**11**

**Alistair**

They stepped back outside the tavern, the mid-afternoon light nearly blinding them after the dim indoors of the windowless tavern. The men they'd passed by when they'd gone in were still yapping away just outside the door. This time their speculation about King Cailan's death was a bit more in depth—actually questioning Loghain's actions this time around rather than believing it had been the Grey Wardens. As Alistair and his group walked towards the bridge, he heard a last comment from one of the men: that the country would be torn apart by the fighting for the throne. Alistair couldn't quite grasp what had made Flemeth so adamant about him coming forth as a claimant to the throne. If Anora wanted to damn thing, she could have it, as far as he was concerned. But if Loghain—the man who had killed Duncan with his actions—insisted on taking it for his own, either as Regent or outright sovereign, Alistair felt much more inclined to fight for said throne.

Then again, the cost might be too high. Duncan had told him many times over that it was the responsibility of the Grey Wardens to stop the Blight, no matter what it took. That Grey Wardens were supposed to remain politically neutral, or at least as much as they possibly could. With Ferelden mired in a civil war over the throne, it gave the darkspawn that much more of an advantage. Ferelden would be disorganized and whittling down its numbers for armies, while the darkspawn were ever increasing theirs. Tactically, it made no sense to keep fighting amongst themselves, and yet they did. And the Bannorn were fighting each other without anyone else even making a claim to the throne in opposition to Loghain.

How could they, as supposedly neutral Grey Wardens, unite Ferelden to combat the true threat—the Blight? Duncan had said that they should do whatever it took. Alistair feared that the best path to take may as well put him on the throne.

The thought galled him. He wanted to yell and scream and shout that he didn't want to do it. He'd been brought up being constantly told that thoughts to being king were to never enter his mind. Not that he'd minded—it was never something he'd wanted. Let Cailan have it for all his want of glorious glory for glory's sake. In the end, of course, that's what had gotten Cailan killed. Alistair couldn't be sure if the battle at Ostagar could have been won. On paper, it should have, but when Loghain withdrew and threw their battle plans to hell, it entirely removed the possibility of survival for almost everyone. All the thoughts made his head hurt.

He missed Duncan.

It had been so much easier having someone guide him, someone else to think about all these things and take them in and make the right decision, however hard. Alistair still wasn't sure if he would've been able to kill Ser Jory as Duncan had. He knew, from his own Joining, and other Joinings he'd been witness to, that it had to happen. He'd also seen Duncan manage to reason with recruits who tried to back out at the last minute. Some of those recruits survived, and once they'd lived through the Joining, started to accept becoming a Grey Warden instead of backing away. But once Jory had drawn his weapon and taken a swing at Duncan, there was nothing else Duncan could have done. Sure, the Warden Commander could have disarmed Jory, he'd had him locked in that circle parry. But there had been that wild look to Jory's eyes. Jory might have tried to run, and he might have run screaming about just what the Joining entailed. But the man had been so _determined_ to become a Grey Warden before.

Alistair hadn't caught the signs, and he hadn't had time to really discuss Jory with Duncan, not with all the battle planning and Duncan having to relay orders to the other Wardens through his second and third and whatevers-in-command. Duncan had been positive that it was a Blight, and if a man had taken so many steps and tests in his attempt to be a Grey Warden, turning him down in the face of a Blight hadn't seemed wise. Alistair had thought that Jory might've tried to run, not try to fight Duncan. It was all hindsight, anyway. Once Jory swung that blade, he'd committed to his course, and Duncan had been left no recourse of his own except to swing back.

Still, Alistair didn't think he had the mettle in himself to do what had needed to be done in that situation. And he wasn't sure if he did in this or if he even knew what the right thing to do really was. He really wanted to just go shouting everywhere he could that Loghain was the real traitor, Loghain had killed all the Grey Wardens, and Loghain had killed Cailan. Part of him felt badly that he cared less about Cailan's death than Duncan's. The rest of him didn't care. Cailan hadn't shown the slightest interest in his life, he hadn't even tried to get him out of the Chantry's hands. Instead, he'd been content to let his younger half-brother become a lyrium addicted Chantry tool. It had been Duncan who'd saved him.

The same Duncan who had saved Alistair's own younger half-brother, even if Malcolm wasn't willing to admit it. He did wonder what had gone wrong with Malcolm's recruitment to make him so resentful. Duncan was normally good enough with his easy grace and diplomacy to convince those best recruits he found to join of their own accord. He'd told Malcolm the truth, that Duncan rarely had to invoke the Right of Conscription. Well, at least invoke it where the recruit didn't want to join, those were the truly rare events. Usually, if the Right was invoked, it was more of Alistair's case, where the guardians or keepers of said person refused to let them go.

He surreptitiously glanced over at his brother, who'd stopped at the apex of the bridge and stared at the stone building of Lothering's Chantry. He couldn't decide if he liked him or not. Sometimes he did, other times he wanted to punch him in the face, especially when he even mentioned Duncan. It was plain as day to Alistair that Malcolm hadn't cared for the man, even though he'd saved his life. And other times, when Malcolm didn't think anyone was looking his eyes would fill with a helpless anguish, Alistair just wanted to protect him. Then he'd remember that Malcolm hadn't liked Alistair's own protector, and he'd glare at him instead.

Or imagine punching him. That, too. Alistair glanced back at the tavern, wondering if they should have tried getting more information from people there. Maybe they should go back.

"Alistair?" Malcolm said, pulling Alistair's attention to him.

"Yes?"

"If we went into the Chantry, how would the templars react to Morrigan?"

Behind Alistair, the witch scoffed, sounding as if she weren't the least bit afraid of them.

"Hmm. Good question." He frowned and studied the stream below them for a moment. "I suppose, since no templar is actively hunting her with a phylactery or anything, they'll assume she's got permission to be out of the Circle or whatever. They won't do much unless she does something... bad." He slid a glance at Morrigan.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I promise not to turn anyone into toads, set anyone on fire, or freeze off anyone's private parts. Is that acceptable or need I go into more detail?"

Alistair's eyes widened. "You can do that?"

She arched an eyebrow. "Which? Toads? Fire? Or freezing? Here, I'll answer before you need specify: I can do all three of those things, and more if I so choose."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Alistair, taking a few more steps away from her. Then he turned to Malcolm, pretending to ignore Morrigan. "So, why'd you ask?"

"The only other place I can think of that might know what's going on politically would be the Chantry. And, well, I really don't think one of the templars deciding to smite Morrigan right then and there would help our cause."

"If they try to smite me," Morrigan said, "consider my promise annulled."

Malcolm shrugged. "Fair enough."

For once, Alistair couldn't argue with Morrigan, either. Once someone pulled a weapon on you, steel or spell, you had to defend yourself. Even if it was at great cost. Malcolm started for the Chantry and the rest of them followed.

Alistair wasn't even sure why he let Malcolm take the lead. He'd pretty much insisted, but couldn't really give an explanation as to why. He hoped no one asked any time soon. That'd be awkward. It could be that his brother seemed a lot more driven, but Alistair wasn't sure if it was for the same reason as him. Alistair wanted to carry on Duncan's mission, the Grey Wardens' mission—stopping the Blight. Malcolm, however, he couldn't tell if he was more concerned with getting Loghain off the throne and Alistair on to it or wanting to stop the Blight at any cost like he did. For now, whatever reason Malcolm might have, their causes coincided.

Besides, it was easier to follow. Felt more safe that way.

As they got near the Chantry's gate, the Chanter's droning outside finally started to register with Alistair. He stopped and considered the Chanter for a moment. Here was the chance to do something he'd wanted to do since he was a ten-year-old boy first sent to the Chantry as a templar initiate. Before anyone could object, he moved forward, within conversation range of the Chanter. The Chanter nodded at him in greeting and stopped Chanting, as if waiting for a question from Alistair. People always asked them questions, usually looking for some moving insight from the Chant of Light.

Not Alistair's intention. He deliberately kept a straight face and asked, "A Chanter says what?"

The Chanter blinked at him, as if no one had ever asked him a question like that. Alistair would bet a lot of money he didn't have that the Chanter hadn't.

"What?" the Chanter said.

The young boy standing nearby burst into laughter. "Ha! You got him to speak!"

Alistair winked at the kid and strode away, leaving the Chanter to splutter into a verse that had the word 'what' in it.

Malcolm sniggered, Leliana gave Alistair a despairing look, while Morrigan only seemed confused.

Inside the Chantry, Alistair immediately got the normal conflicting feelings about it. One side of him actually liked the familiarity it brought. He'd spent more than half his life within a Chantry's grasp, if not within its walls. At the same time, he fought a constant impulse to turn around and run out the doors. He cautiously glanced over at Morrigan to see if she betrayed anything she felt about being in there.

And... nothing. If anything, she looked incredibly bored.

Leliana, though, kept shifting from one foot to the other, while her eyes kept drifting back towards the door. He would've thought Morrigan's and Leliana's reactions within the Chantry to be the opposite. Very interesting.

Before the two women noticed him staring and thinking he was staring at them for other reasons, he gave his attention to the rest of his surroundings. Refugees huddled in corners, slumped in pews, stood against walls, all sharing the same despairing look. For them, they already thought themselves casualties of the Blight. They had fled from their homes, but somewhere in between that live-preserving instinct to flee and arriving in Lothering, they had already given up. Candlelight flickered on the faces of others who knelt in prayer at small altars in the galleries, their faces sharing some of the tightness of fear as the others, yet possessing some solace in their prayer.

A small group of templars had gathered in the entryway, all listening to a Knight-Commander giving orders that they would stay and protect the refugees and villagers to the best of their ability until whatever end came to them.

Something Loghain should have done.

The Knight-Commander dismissed his templars and noticed Malcolm and the rest of them standing nearby. "Yes? Who might you be?"

Malcolm nodded to Knight-Commander. "You can call me Malcolm."

"I am Ser Bryant, commander of Lothering's remaining templars." The templar's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Alistair was afraid he'd been terribly wrong and he was going to figure out that Morrigan was an apostate and everyone would be on fire. Then Ser Bryant said, "You don't seem like the other refugees. Are you one of Arl Eamon's knights?"

Alistair frowned. What were Eamon's knights doing here? They should be at Redcliffe or returning to Redcliffe or, well, not here.

Malcolm hesitated for a moment before answering, "Actually, I'm a Grey Warden."

_Technically_, Alistair thought.

Bryant frowned. "I see. Teyrn Loghain declared all Grey Wardens traitors, responsible for the King's death. You know this, I hope?"

Alistair's hand twitched for want to draw his sword and make good Ser Bryant take that back.

"He claimed we're responsible?" Malcolm repeated as if he hadn't heard that notion a short time ago outside of the tavern. Though, Alistair had to admit, no matter how many times he heard it, he didn't quite believe it either.

"And set a bounty on any who survived," replied Ser Bryant. "Now, I don't believe the Grey Wardens would be as careless or malicious as the teyrn claims, but either way, there it is. I think it's best you not linger, though. Just in case."

He could see that the Knight-Commander wasn't speaking of himself, but of the desperate refugees around them, people who might see only the reward of gold and not care about the politics of it all.

Malcolm sighed. "I understand. But, before we go, could you please give me any other new or information? Anything at all you might have heard going on in Ferelden recently?"

Bryant considered the question before answering, "Other than the darkspawn horde bearing down on us? None of it is good. Teyrn Loghain is set to declare himself king, I hear. Disaster piled on disaster. He has no legitimate claim to the throne, though. He doesn't have any royal blood. Yes, he may be a hero, and his daughter may be queen, but he is a commoner, and the king's corpse is barely cold. If Arl Eamon was able to intervene, perhaps it wouldn't have gone this far." He shrugged. "I don't care who takes the throne. Only fools right over who owns a cottage while it burns down around them."

Alistair scowled. Then he and Malcolm were fools to want or attempt to help fuel this civil war, and damn Malcolm for wanting to do so.

Then Alistair remembered Duncan, remembered the darkspawn horde flowing over Cailan's body and Duncan trying to protect it even as he was injured himself, drowning them forever. No. Loghain didn't care about the darkspawn. It wouldn't matter if Ferelden united under him or not—the Blight still wouldn't stand a chance of being stopped. Not while Loghain had practically wiped out all Grey Warden presence in Ferelden and would not allow Wardens to enter from any other country. He didn't want the throne, but there were nobles that the Bannorn and commoners listened to. Eamon was one of them.

"What's wrong with Arl Eamon?" Malcolm asked.

"He has fallen ill and his knights are on a quest for the sacred urn filled with Andraste's ashes, said to cure any malady. He must be very ill if they chase miracles as the only cure." Ser Bryant chucked a thumb towards the opposite side of the hall. "One of the arl's knights is here searching for fantasies while..." He let out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, never mind. Ask him if you care about this foolishness."

"All right," replied Malcolm.

Bryant nodded. "Travel safely, and may the Maker watch over you."

Alistair went in the direction the Knight-Commander had pointed and thought he recognized the knight. "Ser Donall? Is that you?"

The knight turned around and it was indeed Ser Donall. "Alistair?" He grinned. "By the Maker, how are you? I was certain you were dead!"

The scowl came back to Alistair's face. He started to wonder if it would become permanent. "Not yet, no thanks to Teyrn Loghain."

Donall's eyes darkened in outrage. "If Arl Eamon were well, he'd set Loghain straight soon enough."

Malcolm started quizzing the knight about this strange quest for Andraste's ashes, but the knight seemed to share Ser Bryant's view. "Nothing I've found leads me to believe this was anything more than an act of desperation. I know you said that you wanted to talk to the arl, but he won't be seeing anyone until he's recovered."

"I don't like the sound of that," Alistair said, wanting his opinion known. "We should see Arl Eamon for ourselves and find out what's happening."

"I agree."

"You can travel to Redcliffe if you like," said Donall, with a shrug. "Perhaps he has recovered. Or perhaps his son might assist you. If nothing else, I am certain you would be welcome at Castle Redcliffe. The arlessa is there, and she could tell you more than I could."

_Or she could share nothing at all with us and tell us to go away. _Alistair's jaw clenched at mention of Isolde. He also took note that Malcolm's did, too. What interaction had he had with Isolde that made him react in the same way? Not that anyone who met the arlessa and had half a brain wouldn't instinctively react like that. If anything, just the accent would drive anyone mad. Leliana was Orlesian, just like Isolde, but Leliana's accent had a certain charm, something Isolde sorely lacked. Alistair still couldn't fathom what had made Eamon fall in love with the woman.

They said farewell to the knight and left the Chantry before any of the refugees caught on to who they were. It would get around Lothering soon after the confrontation in the tavern, and they'd best be gone once the news really broke. Malcolm seemed to think the same and led them over to where they'd hitched the horses. Gunnar barked happily on seeing them before running straight to Leliana to inspect his new compatriot. Leliana gaped at the dog as if she expected to be torn apart at any moment.

"He's harmless," Alistair told her.

Gunnar took exception and growled.

"Okay, he's harmless to _you_," he amended. "To the darkspawn, and me, he's a fearsome beast." He looked at the dog. "Is that better, O Mighty Warhound?"

Gunnar barked in approval, or at least what Alistair imagined to be so. He wondered just how intelligent this creature was. Having grown up in Ferelden, one always heard about the mabari dogs, but he'd never actually interacted with one this much before. The dog ran a couple circles around the bard, sniffing at her feet and legs. Then he stood in front of her for a moment before leaping up with his large paws on her chest, nearly knocking her over. He licked her face, and then jumped down and trotted off toward the horses.

When Leliana looked at Malcolm, Alistair couldn't tell if she was angry, amused, frightened, or all three.

Malcolm shrugged. "He's just aggressively friendly."

Leliana clearly didn't buy Malcolm's explanation, but didn't say anything.

They saddled up and headed out of town, to the crossroads, and onto the West Road. They hadn't yet traveled a mile before they encountered a small band of darkspawn and a dwarven merchant fighting them as best he could. Alistair and Malcolm leapt off their horses and waded into the skirmish. The few darkspawn didn't give them much of a challenge, not between the two in the melee combined with Leliana's firing incredibly accurate arrows from atop her horse and Morrigan hitting them with the fire she'd threatened everyone else with earlier.

The relieved dwarves thanked them, and to Alistair's surprise, asked to accompany them.

"I don't think you'd want to travel with Grey Wardens right now," Malcolm told them.

They didn't.

The company rode until the sky started to redden in the west, signaling that they needed to get off the road and make camp somewhere nearby. Leliana graciously took over the cooking duty for Alistair at what he suspiciously thought was at either Malcolm's or Morrigan's request. He couldn't see why. He made perfectly acceptable food.

But once they ate their shared meal, he decided he'd have to let her cook much more often. They made small talk for awhile, and then Leliana told them some of the tales she'd learned as a bard. Whatever other skills she might possess, she made a great storyteller. He knew Orlesian bards were much more than bards. In fact, more rumored assassins than actual bards, but he hadn't suspected that they would be just as good at being, well, bards.

Then came the time where Morrigan went off to her own little campsite and Leliana crawled into her own tent, eyes drooping for want to sleep.

Which left Alistair and Malcolm awkwardly quiet at the fire. After the heated conversation they'd had the last time they'd sat together at the fire, Alistair was reluctant to say anything. He wasn't even sure what he would say if he wanted to say anything in the first place. The fire crackled between them, their only conversation for some time. Alistair stared into it, thinking of Duncan and what he'd told them in front of the fire at Ostagar before he'd headed to the battlefield. Now he even missed being scolded by the man, because if he were being scolded, at least Duncan would be _alive_. Flemeth should have saved Duncan. And Cailan, for however much a glory hound his half brother might have been, he had kept Ferelden united and trusting in the Grey Wardens. Duncan would know what to do right now. He would be his calm and collected self, he would be leading them, and Alistair wouldn't feel so alone and lost.

Sure, Malcolm was here, and a brother by blood. And yes, technically he was a Grey Warden since he'd survived the Joining. But... he knew Malcolm didn't want to be there. That Malcolm didn't want to be a Grey Warden and felt trapped. In terms of fighting the Blight, Malcolm wasn't his brother like the other Grey Wardens had been. Not family like the Wardens had been.

"Do you want to talk about Duncan?" Malcolm suddenly asked.

"What?" Alistair blinked several times as he turned to Malcolm.

"I wanted to know if you wanted to talk about Duncan."

"You don't have to do that. I know that you hated him,"Alistair replied, and then returned to gazing at the fire.

He said nothing, confirming Alistair's suspicions. At some point, Malcolm had found an innocent stick of wood and poked at the fire with it. If Malcolm hated Duncan, and probably the Grey Wardens, how could he even believe in fighting the Blight? Why did he stay? Alistair was tempted to tell him to leave, with force if necessary, but couldn't bring himself to do so. As much as he wanted to in that moment, he knew that Duncan wouldn't have felt the same. Duncan had seen something in Malcolm, something that made him conscript him despite how Malcolm felt about joining. And Alistair didn't want to do anything Duncan would've disapproved of. He supposed keeping Malcolm around would be tribute to Duncan in some strange, roundabout way. But, if he didn't want to stay of his own free will, who was he to keep him there?

"I didn't hate him," Malcolm said quietly.

Alistair stared at him in disbelief. "You could've fooled me. The way you acted towards him at camp in Ostagar, how you were when you first arrived, the looks you gave him... well, that all seems to indicate you hated the man."

Malcolm glared at him. "I was angry at him. You can be angry with someone and not hate them, you know." He sighed and looked back at the fire. "And I know he was like a father to you. I understand that. And I thought you might want to talk about it, okay?"

Silence fell between them again.

"You really didn't hate him?"

"No, I didn't."

Alistair sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I should have handled it better. Duncan warned me right from the start that this could happen. Any of us could die in battle. I shouldn't have lost it, not when I'm supposed to be the senior Warden, not when so much is riding on us, not with the Blight and everything else."

"It's fine," Malcolm said, not looking at Alistair.

Then Alistair remembered just what Malcolm had lost only a week before Ostagar—his entire family. All the people who had raised him had been murdered. He still had no idea about the specific circumstances of his conscription, but he knew Duncan had somehow gotten them out. They'd traveled from Highever to Ostagar right after, and Alistair was now fairly certain that Malcolm hadn't had time to think about any of it. Maybe he needed time. "You don't have to stay."

That made Malcolm look up. "Yes, I do."

"No, you don't. You didn't want to be a Grey Warden. You were forced to. I don't know the circumstances, but you did tell me you were conscripted. I remember that much. All of the Wardens I knew who were conscripted like you were... they had time. They had time to get used to being a Grey Warden and they spent a lot of time with other Grey Wardens. Most of all, I think, they had Duncan. You don't." _I don't, either_, but he left that part out.

The stick flew out of Malcolm's hand and into the fire as he got to his feet, flaring brightly before falling. "This is a Blight, Alistair. It's a war. Whether I like it or not, I'm in a military organization, such as it were. If I left, that would be desertion, I think even if I were asked to leave. And that's not something I'm willing to do. So it doesn't matter if I like being a Grey Warden or not. I took the Joining and here I am. And here I stay. I can't exactly give the Joining back."

Alistair had no idea what to say. Malcolm was right—leaving the Grey Wardens during a Blight was desertion. He knew that the Wardens let people come and go when it wasn't a Blight or there wasn't a large, active threat of darkspawn. It was part of having the Taint. Sooner or later, you would have to come back. And in the end, everyone got the Calling.

In the meantime, Malcolm had walked over to stand face to face with Alistair. "Besides, where would I go? Rendon Howe killed my entire family and took my home. Fergus died either at Ostagar or in the Korcari Wilds. This is my life now."

"...whether you like it or not," Alistair finished.

"Something like that."

He stayed quiet, letting the popping of the fire do the talking. Gunnar huffed from somewhere around the perimeter in the camp where he was patrolling. A light snore came from the general direction of Leliana's tent. He didn't dare look in the direction of Morrigan's campsite. Finally, he asked, "Why were you so angry with Duncan?"

Malcolm mumbled something.

"What?" said Alistair.

"Because he's a manipulative bastard!" he shouted.

Alistair punched him.

The smack of fist landing on face surprised both of them. Malcolm stumbled backward, hand moving to hold his jaw. Then he leapt forward and tackled Alistair to the dirt. The tussle didn't last for more than half a minute before Gunnar ran over and started growling and barking. That brought Leliana out of her tent and Morrigan running over from her campsite.

Malcolm kept shouting as they fought. "He was a manipulative bastard who used a horrible situation to force me into the Grey Wardens. And don't you try to tell me that he wasn't, because you weren't there. You have no idea what happened or how it happened or anything!"

There was a flash of light that blinded them both, and suddenly, neither of them could move. Morrigan stood over them, her staff in hand, looking mightily pissed that she'd been woken up. In response, she'd petrified them both. "Need I send you to opposite corners of the camp?" she asked, drumming her fingers on her staff. "I could also just leave you in this spell all night. 'Tis easy for me to maintain."

At that point, Alistair would have apologized for hitting Malcolm, but he couldn't with a petrified jaw.

Morrigan must have noticed him trying to talk, because she closed her eyes, moved her hand slightly, and suddenly they could move again. Alistair and Malcolm separated. Yet even though his jaw could move freely again, Alistair had already changed his mind about apologizing.

"I'll take the next watch," Malcolm said. "The rest of you feel free to sleep." He clapped his leg to call Gunnar to his side, and then disappeared into the darkness outside the fire's light.

Leliana's eyes studied the patch of forest where Malcolm had gone. "I don't think he was ready to talk about it."

"You don't say," replied Alistair.


	12. Chapter 12

**12**

**Malcolm**

They rode hard for Redcliffe and managed to arrive within two days. Between the beating of hooves on the road and Leliana's attempts at chatting up Morrigan, Alistair and Malcolm had yet to have a chance to have a chat of their own. Malcolm hadn't been surprised that Alistair had hit him—in his place, he'd have done the same—but at own discovery that he was still angry with Duncan. He hated himself for it because he knew that in the end, Duncan had been right. There was a Blight on the land, he'd seen the horde with his own eyes, watched King Cailan and Duncan killed by that horde because of Loghain's short-sighted treachery. He saw now what his duty really was, and that if he didn't battle against the Blight, he was as short-sighted as Loghain.

But that apparently didn't stop him from being pissed.

He wanted to _yell_ at Duncan. Shout all those things he'd been thinking for that week's trip from Highever to Ostagar. Then he wanted to apologize for not wanting to fight against the darkspawn and ask Duncan to teach him what being a Grey Warden really meant. Instead, the man had gone and _died_ on him. He was supposed to have been invincible, or something. At least that's what the tall warrior had seemed like when he'd first walked into Highever Castle's main hall. Instead, he'd proven to be just as mortal as everyone else, including the king.

And he, they, were left without a leader. He wanted Alistair to do it. Alistair was the senior Grey Warden. He was even the elder brother. It should've been him doing the leading. But Alistair had been brought up very differently from him, Malcolm knew. Malcolm had been raised a teyrn's son, trained in leadership and management as well as being a warrior. He'd been raised to have confidence in himself and his abilities and, most importantly, loved. That sort of security went a long way to give someone self-confidence as an adult.

Alistair never had that. Instead, Arl Eamon had chucked Alistair to the Chantry when he'd been just ten years old. Alistair had been constantly told he was never to dare even think of being on the throne, that he couldn't lead himself, much less any other men. So now with the only man that Alistair had truly looked up to dead, Alistair had lost his footing in the world.

So it fell onto Malcolm, even though his family was dead as well. Technically, they both had each other, as brothers and Grey Wardens, but they both knew how well _that_ was going.

Fantastically, that's what.

They slowed their horses to a walk as they entered the Redcliffe Village proper. Malcolm half expected to hear Duncan tell him that he wasn't allowed to leave his side. Instead, Alistair said, "Normally, there isn't someone waiting to greet travelers at this bridge."

Malcolm shook himself out of his reverie and looked in that direction. A panic-stricken man stood on the bridge, a strung bow waiting on his back, looking almost happily in their direction. Malcolm dismounted and quickly found a place to hitch his horse. The others followed suit and as a group they made their way over to the panicked man.

He spoke as soon as they were within earshot. "Have you come to help us?"

Malcolm frowned. "What do you mean?" He almost asked if there was a problem, but that would've been stupid. Of course there was a problem if they needed help.

"So you don't know? Has nobody out there heard?"

"Heard what?" Why did people insist on making him ask numerous questions before giving him a real answer?

"We're under attack!"

Malcolm refrained from pointing out that there wasn't a single arrow heading in their direction, nor a vast horde of axe-bearing barbarians.

The man continued, "Monsters come out of the castle every night and attack us until dawn! Everybody's been fighting... and dying."

Which tended to be how battles worked out, in the end. Malcolm kept that to himself as well. His mother would've been proud.

"Apparently, everyone seems to agree that a Blight is a perfect time to start killing one another," Morrigan said. "Marvelous, really."

Her statement, glib as it was, held more truth to it than Malcolm wanted to admit. That's exactly what Howe had done when he'd attacked Highever and killed everyone. And what Loghain had done when he'd abandoned the King and the Grey Wardens at Ostagar.

"We've no army to defend us, nor arl and no king to send us help. Many are dead, and those left are terrified that they're next," the man said, ignoring Morrigan.

"Hold on," said Alistair. "What is this evil that's attacking you?"

"I... I don't rightly know. I'm sorry. Nobody does. I should take you to Bann Teagan. He's all that's holding us together. He'll want to see you."

Malcolm remembered Teagan. He was a good man. Reminded him a lot of Fergus.

"Bann Teagan? Arl Eamon's brother? He's here?" Alistair asked.

"Yes," replied the man. "It's not far, if you'll come with me." The now less-panic-stricken man led them down the steep incline from the main road down into the center of Redcliffe Village. The journey took them past a narrow waterfall cut into the side of cliff of deep red rock, the same as many buildings were set almost into the same cliffs. Malcolm resisted the urge keep gazing at the falls as they went by, he didn't want to look like some sort of dumb traveler. The man led them behind a group of men practicing archery in front of the Chantry. Malcolm held back the impulse to tell that that they'd chosen a rather bad spot for practicing—one daydreaming person and one stray arrow could easily meet up with quite a bad end.

They clattered into the Chantry building, crowded with refugees wearing faces pinched with fear. Desperation clawed at them, not the same desperation as the refugees from the Blight, but desperation nonetheless. Something seriously dark and frightening was happening in this village.

Bann Teagan stood just in front of the pulpit. "It's... Tomas, yes?" he said when he noticed the group approaching. "And who are these people with you? They're obviously not simple travelers."

Malcolm refrained from a snarky comment. Not the time or the place, he reminded himself.

"No, my lord," replied Tomas. "They just arrived, and I thought you might want to see them."

Teagan nodded. "Well done, Tomas." Then he turned to the small group. "Greetings, my friends. My name is Teagan, Bann of Rainesfere, brother to the arl."

Beside Malcolm, Alistair smiled. "I remember you, Bann Teagan. Though, the last time we met, I was a lot younger and covered in mud."

"Covered in mud?" Teagan repeated. "Alistair? It _is_ you, isn't it? You're alive! This is wonderful news."

"Still alive, yes, though not for long if Teyrn Loghain has anything to say about it," Alistair replied with a dark scowl.

Teagan stroked his chin. "Indeed. Loghain would have us believe that all Grey Wardens died along with my nephew, amongst other things."

"You don't believe Loghain's lies?" Alistair asked immediately.

Malcolm took that in—perhaps if Teagan didn't believe the lies, that there would be other Banns who felt the same way, and possibly as strongly.

"What, that he pulled his men in order to save them? That Cailan risked everything in the name of glory?" He scoffed. "Hardly. Loghain calls the Grey Wardens traitors, murderers of the king. I don't believe it. It is an act of a desperate man." Teagan turned his attention to Malcolm. "So... you are a Grey Warden as well? Is it possible we've met? You seem very familiar."

Malcolm gave him a small, tight smile. "I've been getting that a lot lately. Alistair and I share the same father. That, and the man who raised me was the Teyrn of Highever, so I think we must have met at least once if you visited Highever. And if you met me there, I was probably covered in mud, as well."

Teagan, with great tact, did not address the bastard issue. "Ah, yes, that's it exactly. A pleasure to meet you again, indeed, though I wish it were under better circumstances. You're here to see my brother, I take it?"

Alistair and Malcolm both nodded.

"Unfortunately, that might be a problem. Eamon is gravely ill. No one has heard from the castle in days. No guards patrol the walls, and no one has responded to my shouts. The attacks started a few nights ago. Evil... things surged from the castle. We drove them back, but many perished from the assault."

Was everyone closing their eyes when faced by these evil menaces roaming about in the night? How could not one person provide some sort of concrete description of what exactly they were dealing with? Malcolm forced his frustration down before asking, "What happened then?"

"They hit again the next night," said Teagan. "Each night they come with greater numbers. With Cailan dead and Loghain starting a war over the throne, no one responds to my urgent calls for help. I have a feeling tonight's assault will be the worst yet. Alistair, I hate to ask, but I desperately need the help of you and your friends."

"It isn't just up to me." Alistair looked in Malcolm's direction. "Though, the Grey Wardens don't stand much of a chance against Loghain without Arl Eamon."

That, and it wouldn't help to have most of Redcliffe dead when they marched against the darkspawn. They needed every able-bodied person they could get and that meant keeping as many of them alive as they could to face the darkspawn. "Of course we'll help," he told Teagan.

Morrigan sighed loudly behind him. "How pointless, to help these villagers fight an impossible battle. One would think we had enough to contend with elsewhere. What next? Will we be saving kittens from trees?"

Malcolm turned to look at her. "Do you have something against kittens?"

"I... well... no."

"Besides, the kittens will one day be cats with claws that can help us tear apart the darkspawn. So we might as well be rescuing all the kittens we can while we have the time."

"I suppose I see your point," Morrigan said.

Which was good for Malcolm, because he didn't want to have to explicitly say in front of Bann Teagan that if they helped these people now, they'd be their bitches later. He didn't think it'd go over well. Nor did he think of it as only that, but Morrigan would've kept giving him the evil-eye all day if he hadn't explained in a way she could understand. And judging from the situation in the village, he'd rather have the mage not wanting to smack him upside the head. Not that he really thought she'd changed her mind about smacking him after the fight between him and Alistair a couple nights ago. Leliana hadn't mentioned it, nor had her behavior changed, but Morrigan, more often than not, had somehow managed to ride between the brothers almost the entire time.

"Thank you," said Teagan. "Thank you... this means more to me than you can guess. Tomas, please tell Murdock what transpired. Then return to your post."

Tomas bowed and said, "Yes, my lord," before he left.

Teagan clapped his hands together. "Now then, there is much to do before night falls. I've put two men in charge of the defense outside. Murdock, the village mayor, is outside the Chantry. Ser Perth, one of Eamon's knights, is just up the cliff at the windmill, watching the castle. You may discuss with them the preparations for the coming battle."

Malcolm re-evaluated the defenses inside the Chantry itself. There were barricades set up along the walls, and it seemed a pile of furniture that could be stacked up behind the doors when the attack started. "You should remain here with the refugees, Bann Teagan," he said. "If Arl Eamon and his son are dead in that castle..."

"Yes, I know. It's been in the back of my mind. Though I am perfectly capable of fighting should I be needed."

"I'd hope the situation isn't so dire that you would have to join everyone else outside. No, stay here, be a guard to those that can't fight if it comes to that. They're looking to you for leadership, and if you were killed, I don't think these people would have any hope left."

Teagan nodded somberly. "If you have any questions, I will be here."

"One more thing," Malcolm said. "_What_ do these things look like? No one has been able to describe them. And other than waiting to be attacked by some nameless evil, I'd prefer to have a description."

"The dead. The undead. They're the bodies of people who have been killed either in the castle or here in the village. Something makes them rise and attack us." Teagan shuddered. "Some of them are even recognizable."

Malcolm looked down at his wardog. "Gunnar, stay here and guard Bann Teagan and anyone else who needs protection."

Gunnar barked in reply.

Malcolm headed back outside and right back up the damn cliff. A group of plated knights waited at the top, as Teagan had said. One stood close to the edge of the cliff next to the windmill, gazing across the chasm and at the wide, imposing structure of Castle Redcliffe. "Ser Perth?" Malcolm called out.

One of the knights turned around. "Greetings, Grey Wardens. Tomas told me about you on his way to resume his post at the bridge. I am as relieved as Bann Teagan is to see you here. Though, I must admit, I do not quite know how to address you. Is 'my lord' sufficient?"

Malcolm shifted uncomfortably. That wasn't his life any longer. If anyone was 'my lord' it was Fergus, wherever he was. And he didn't want anyone calling him Grey Warden or Warden if he could help it. That was Duncan or Alistair, not him. Not yet, no matter what his actions and duties might be now. Eventually he might be worthy of the title, but at the moment, he wasn't. "Call me Malcolm, if you would."

The knight inclined his head slightly. "As you wish. I am Ser Perth, until recently in direct service of Arl Eamon of Redcliffe. For now, my charge is defending the village from these evil assaults. Would that I had chosen not to seek out the Urn of Sacred Ashes, perhaps I would have fended off whatever evil befell the castle... or perhaps I would be dead. Ah, well. With Grey Wardens aiding our defense, perhaps all is not lost."

Malcolm didn't mention the fact that Ostagar had been lost despite the presence of over fifty Wardens and the Warden Commander. Best not reduce morale even more.

They spent the rest of the day preparing the village for the night's assault, building barriers and soaking them in oil to set on fire, and flushing out all able-bodied men and women left in the village who might be hiding. Night fell more quickly than anyone would have liked. Malcolm and his group made a stand at the top of the hill, helping to block the most direct path from the castle. Once it was full dark, an eerie green mist descended over the village, casting everything in a sickly hue. Behind the mist came the undead, snarling at them for having the audacity of being alive.

The evil beings ran through the fire bearing maces, swords, shields, or whatever other weapons they had found. Those that didn't burn to a second death as they climbed the fiery barrier doggedly pressed on towards the defenders, their limbs and bodies aflame. Malcolm and Alistair cut and stabbed and bashed, heaving bodies over their heads on their shields, slicing legs of the undead out from under them, and stabbing them in their undead hearts. Behind them, Leliana fired arrow after arrow, each bolt finding a target and taking it out, proving that she did have something to offer them other than crazy, questionable visions of the Maker and great stories told by the campfire. Morrigan nonchalantly fended off the undead, looking detached and mildly bored.

The tide of attackers waned and the group stopped to rest while they could. One of the knights handed a waterskin around, which they all drank from gratefully. Malcolm happily noticed that the undead at least didn't bleed much. His armor had never been this clean after even the smallest skirmish.

A messenger bolted up the lower patch to the village, alerting them a flanking attack down in the village itself. As they hurriedly followed the soldier clad in light mail, Malcolm asked Alistair, "I thought there was a lake between the village and the castle?"

"There is."

"The undead can _swim_?"

"I wonder if they bothered to read the signs that there's no swimming around the harbor docks," Alistair replied, pausing for a moment to cleave one of the undead in question in two.

Malcolm dropped low and used his shield to send a charging body sailing over his head and behind him before whipping around and quickly stabbing it in the chest. "There's no swimming there? It's a good thing I didn't try to escape that way earlier."

Alistair's shield clotheslined another body before he turned to Malcolm. "You were here before Ostagar? And you tried to run from Duncan?"

"Not here. I ran before that. Here, Isolde kicked me out of the castle but I stuck around because I told Duncan I wouldn't try running again. He didn't much believe me at the time about not running, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't have, either." He casually beheaded the next undead that ran up to him, spinning a flail. "She thought I was you, decided that I was lying when I denied it, and kicked me out. Let me tell you, Duncan was amazingly pissed at her. It was an awesome, righteous anger, too."

One of the undead charged at Alistair head-on. Alistair slashed at him with both sword and shield, sending him straight to the ground in front of him, dead again. "He wasn't angry at you for running?"

Malcolm shrugged and hacked the legs out from under one of their enemies. "Not mad, no. Exasperated, maybe. Very much so. I guess he had an infinite patience for his recruits. I mean, Daveth had tried to cut his purse and Duncan never seemed mad at him. Though, I do question Daveth's choice in targets. If I had the ability to pickpocket, I wouldn't have tried that on Duncan, not even on a dare."

"He did have a lot of patience," Alistair agreed, and then sliced the sword arm of one of the undead, following up with a diagonal cut that practically cut the being in half.

"Just not enough time," Malcolm said quietly, more to himself than his brother. He looked for something to kill to take out his frustration on, but the scene around them seemed lacking in watery undead creatures. Over the lake, the sky had started to turn pink at the horizon and around them, the green mist retreated.

It was dawn.

A cheer went up around them. The Chantry opened up and the refugees came out to greet their defenders and the morning sun. The survivors cleared out the bodies as best they could, stacking them as far away from the town proper as possible. They would quickly finish rotting and become a source of contagion, otherwise. They would have to be burned as soon as possible. Malcolm didn't look forward to that particular smell.

Others from the Chantry brought out a breakfast of bread and cheese and clear, cool water. Malcolm and his group sheathed their weapons and sat down on the nearest bench they could find. Bann Teagan found them after a few minutes. "Thank you for helping," he said. "The Revered Mother wants to hold a short service to tell you and everyone else as much soon."

Alistair took a moment to stop eating his cheese and peered up at Teagan. "You realize that all these undead things broke the rule about swimming in the lake? I took it upon myself to mention that to them before re-killing them. They didn't seem to care."

Teagan laughed. "Perhaps they walked along them bottom."

Alistair frowned. "You know, I hadn't considered that."

Once they'd eaten, the Revered Mother sent Chantry brothers and sisters to round up the survivors to stand around the Chantry stairs. Bann Teagan stepped up onto the top of the stairs and gazed out at the gathered crowd. "Dawn arrives, my friends, and all of us remain. We are victorious!"

The villagers cheered.

"And it is these good folk beside me that we have to thank for our lives today. Without their heroism, surely we would all have perished." Teagan faced the small group and bowed deeply. "I bow to you, sers. The Maker smiled on us when he sent you here in our darkest hour."

The crowd cheered again.

Malcolm blushed. "It was everyone, not just us. Everyone should be proud."

The Revered Mother took her cue. "Let us bow our heads and give honor to those who gave their lives in defense of Redcliffe. Now they walk with He who is their Maker. Long may they know the peace of His love."

"So let it be," the crowd intoned, and then dispersed.

Bann Teagan turned to Malcolm's group. "With the Maker's favor, the blow we delivered is enough for us to enter the castle and seek out our arl. Walk with me to the mill and we can talk strategy."

But the walk from the village to the mill was quiet. All of them were tired, and it took more effort than they were willing to admit to walk up the steep path. They stopped at the windmill, all of them looking at the castle, sizing it up. "Odd, how quiet the castle looks from here. You would think there was nobody inside at all." Teagan turned around. "But I shouldn't delay things further. I had a plan to enter the castle after the village was secure. There is a secret passage in the mill, accessible only to my family."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "That's convenient." Though, secret passages tended to be convenient. Such a passage had saved him and Duncan from Arl Howe's men. But not his parents. His mother could have lived. He should have dragged her with them. She should have lived, too. Then he wondered if she would've been disappointed in him for how he'd acted with Duncan. Most likely.

Guilt passed through Teagan's eyes. "Perhaps I should have gone into the castle earlier, but I could not leave the villagers. Both emotionally and tactically, as it would be our fla—Maker's breath!"

The others turned around to find out what had startled Teagan. Arlessa Isolde ran full speed towards the group, a guard close on her heels. "Teagan!" she shouted as soon as she was within hearing distance. "Thank the Maker you yet live!"

_Good men die, and this woman still lives. Maker be damned_, Malcolm thought. However, he kept his silence on the matter.

"Isolde! You're alive! How did you..." The happiness left Teagan's face, replaced by seriousness. "What has happened?"

Isolde ignored the others near Teagan and herself. "I do not have much time to explain. I slipped away from the castle as soon as I saw the battle was over, and I must return quickly. And... I need you to return with me, Teagan. Alone."

"What? Bann Teagan, this could be an ambush," Malcolm said.

Isolde whipped around and glared at Malcolm and Alistair, still ignoring Morrigan and Leliana. "What? I... who is this man, Teagan?" Her question dripped with disdain.

Malcolm remembered the voice quite well and his jaw clenched for want to shut it up. How could one Orlesian accent—Leliana's—be so charming, and another Orlesian accent make him want to punch kittens?

Alistair sighed. "You remember me, Lady Isolde, don't you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Alistair! Of all the... and Malcolm! Why are _you_ here?"

"Most likely saving your life since they bother to do these sorts of things," Morrigan said, her voice as venomous as Isolde's. "Why, I can't fathom, after meeting you." Malcolm fought a grin. Maybe Morrigan liked them more than he'd thought if she became so defensive of them against this harridan of a woman.

Teagan sighed as much as Alistair had. Apparently he didn't approve of the arl's wife any more than the rest of them did. "They are Grey Wardens, Isolde. I owe them my life."

Isolde blinked at the half-scolding. "Pardon me," she said to them, sounding all but apologetic. "I would exchange pleasantries, but considering the circumstances—"

"Please, Lady Isolde," Alistair interrupted, "we had no idea anyone was even alive inside. We must have some answers."

Malcolm doubted Isolde would ever had exchanged pleasantries with them, undead ravaging the castle or not.

"I know you need more of an explanation, but I... I don't know what is safe to tell. Teagan, there is a terrible evil within the castle. The dead wake and hunt the living. The mage responsible was caught, but still it continues. And I think Connor is going mad. We have survived but he won't flee the castle. He has seen so much death! You must stop him, Teagan! You are his uncle. You could reason with him. I do not know what else to do!"

Malcolm figured that a boy's mother would be able to reason more with him than an uncle. He knew that whenever he tried to reason with Oren that he met with little success, while Oriana did far better. And if the mage responsible for all of these happenings had been caught, they would have stopped. So something else had to be controlling all of it. And at how vague the woman was being... "Why do I get the feeling you aren't telling us everything?" Malcolm asked. He was really getting tired of people not giving him all the information he needed straight away.

The arlessa's eyes widened in shock. "I.. I beg your pardon? That's a rather impertinent accusation!"

Malcolm smirked. "Not if it's true."

"An evil I cannot fathom holds my son and husband hostage. I came for help! What more do you want from me?" she shouted.

"Information," Malcolm replied.

Teagan stepped in before the argument could progress further. "But, I do not understand what you mean by this 'evil.' Did it create the walking corpses? What is it?"

The arlessa turned her back to Malcolm. "Something the mage unleashed. So far it allows Eamon, Connor, and myself to live. The others were not so fortunate. It's killed so many, and turned their bodies into walking nightmares! Once it was done with the castle, it struck the village! It wants us to live, but I do not know why."

Malcolm couldn't figure out why it would want Isolde to live, either. Eamon and Connor, sure, but not this woman.

She continued, "It allowed me to come for you, Teagan, because I begged, because I said Connor needed help."

Morrigan spoke up. "Do you think this evil could be some kind of demon?"

"I do not know," Isolde said, not even bothering to look at Morrigan. "Oh, Maker's mercy! Could it truly be a demon? I can't let it hurt my Connor. Come back with me, Teagan, please!"

"Tell me about this mage you mentioned," Malcolm said.

"He is an infiltrator I think—one of the castle staff. We discovered he was poisoning my husband. That's why Eamon fell ill."

Malcolm frowned. Last he'd known, Arl Eamon hadn't had a mage in his employ. The King didn't even have a mage advising the throne, much less any of his teyrns or arls.

"Eamon was poisoned?" asked Teagan.

"He claims an agent of Teyrn Loghain's hired him. He may be lying, however, I cannot say."

That particular circumstance Malcolm could believe. With Loghain's abandonment at Ostagar resulting in the king's death, Howe's removal of the Couslands at Highever, and poisoning Arl Eamon, he almost gave himself a clear path to the throne. Banns like Teagan could oppose it, but without the support of the second most powerful noble from the throne, his protests would go nowhere except into bloody civil war. "Why must Teagan go alone?"

"For Connor's sake!" Isolde shouted at him. "I promised him I would return quickly and only with Teagan! Teagan, I know you could order your men to follow me when I return to the castle. I beg you not to, for Connor's sake!"

It seemed to Malcolm that, for Connor's sake, they should be storming the castle.

Teagan sighed. "The King is dead, and we need my brother now more than ever. I will return to the castle with you, Isolde."

Isolde hugged Teagan while the bann stood awkwardly still. "Oh, thank the Maker! Bless you, Teagan, bless you!"

"It seems you have little choice," Malcolm said. He hated it when people were cornered into things, especially after what'd happened to him.

"I have no illusions of dealing with this evil alone. You, on the other hand, have proven quite formidable. Isolde, can you excuse us for a moment? We must confer in private before I return to the castle with you."

"Please do not take long. I will be by the bridge." Isolde turned and walked away.

Malcolm and Alistair let out breaths of relief to be rid of her for the time being.

Bann Teagan smiled sympathetically at them. "I know neither of you get along with her. I do as best I can, myself. She is my brother's wife, after all. Thank you for being mostly civil with her. Now, here's what I propose: I go in with Isolde and you enter the castle using the secret passage. My signet ring unlocks the door. Perhaps I will... distract whatever evil is inside and increase your chances of getting in unnoticed. What do you say?"

"It's insane."

Teagan fixed a glare on him. "What choice do either of us have? If your business with Eamon is important, you're going to have to go inside to find him."

"He's right," Alistair said. "Without Arl Eamon, we'll never get the support we need."

Malcolm scowled. "It's not about _not_ saving Arl Eamon. I just don't like the plan. At all. Bann Teagan is walking into a trap and we all know it. There has to be a better way. I just... I just don't see it yet."

"We've run out of time. Ser Perth and his men can watch for danger at the castle entrance. If you can open the gates from within, they can move in and help you. I don't think there's anyone else up there who can. If you choose not to go, then it is up to me to do what I can." He pulled a ring off his pinky finger and handed it to them. "Here is my signet ring. It opens the lock on the trapdoor in the mill. Whatever you do, Eamon in the priority here. If you have to, just get him out of there. Isolde, me, and anyone else... we're expendable."

Malcolm crossed his arms and glared at Teagan. "I could stop you from doing this, you know."

Teagan nodded, the anger having disappeared from his eyes. "So you could. But what would be the point? Do you really want to endanger my little nephew and especially my brother? I don't."

"So we're just going to send you to that woman? It seems so dangerous," Leliana said.

"I can delay no longer," said Teagan, not responding to Leliana's comment on the obvious. "Allow me to bid you farewell. And good luck." With that, he strode away to where Isolde and her guard waited. The pair headed for the castle without a backward glance.


	13. Chapter 13

**13**

**Alistair**

They moved through the secret passage clumsily in the near-darkness. Even Leliana had lost some of her trademark grace. When they got to the other side and entered a small anteroom outside the castle basement, Alistair took stock of his companions. Morrigan looked like, well, Morrigan, and not really any worse for wear. Tiredness pinched at the corners of Leliana's eyes. As he'd seen in the tunnel, her step wasn't as quick or smooth as it normally was, either.

Malcolm looked the most exhausted. There were dark smudges under his eyes, his face had taken on a rather pale appearance, and his thin scar seemed to flare as a result. Usually, the scar wasn't that noticeable, but that was when his brother had a healthy color to his face and not this deathly, exhausted pallor. They needed to fix whatever this problem at Redcliffe was, and then they needed a long rest. Hours and hours of uninterrupted sleep. If they got this sorted out properly enough, they could have castle guards or Ser Perth's knights keep watch so they could all sleep.

But, for any of that to happen, they had to fix things first.

Malcolm took in a breath as if readying himself, moved forward, and opened the steel door. The hallway beyond presented them with Redcliffe's dungeons, small cells lining each side of the corridor. Alistair wondered that if Malcolm had tried to run from Duncan in Redcliffe and had been caught, Duncan would've put him in here. He truly didn't know the answer—Duncan tended to be unpredictable like that. He suspected that if Jory had been in that particular situation, Duncan would have him put in a cell. But Malcolm? No, probably not. It wouldn't work with him and Alistair was sure Duncan would've known that.

Yes, he really needed to figure out exactly what Duncan had seen in Malcolm.

Alistair stepped into the dank hallway. "You know, I locked myself in a cage once, when I was a child. For an entire day. Good times."

Morrigan shot him a look informing him that no, she was not surprised in the least.

A snarl from the other end of the corridor broke off any rejoinder Alistair might have made. Three, no, four undead bodies ran towards them, swinging away.

"Oh, not _more_ of these things," Malcolm complained before slicing through the nearest one. An arcane bolt from Morrigan took care of another, one of Leliana's arrows got the third, and Alistair got the last with a good smack from his shield. Malcolm walked to each body in turn and kicked them to make sure they stayed dead for a second time. "I can't decide if these or darkspawn smell worse."

"Does it really matter?" asked Morrigan. "'Tis both who are annoying, almost as much as Alistair."

The Grey Warden in question ignored the jibe and went to each cell in turn to make sure there had been no unfortunate occupants stuck witnessing all of this.

"Hello? Who's there? Is there anyone alive out there?"

It seemed there was a misfortunate soul. Alistair empathized in a way. The four of them strode to the source of the noise, all of them wary of another snarling attack from the other hallway. When they weren't attacked, they relaxed a bit. In one of the tiny cells stood a man in mage robes. No, Alistair corrected himself. Apprentice robes. Apostate, then. Someone who hadn't gone through his Harrowing and had managed to escape. The man's light blue eyes held a helpless, repentant look to them, his face almost like a puppy's in its plaintiveness. Could this seriously be the mage who had caused all of these problems? No. Had to be another one.

"Wait... you don't look like the arlessa's guards," the mage said. "Are you from outside the castle?"

"Good guess," Malcolm replied. "Who are you supposed to be?"

The mage sighed. "My name is Jowan. I'm a mage Lady Isolde hired to tutor her son, Connor. Until they, um, threw me in the dungeon down here."

Alistair stepped up close and glared at the man through the bars, no longer feeling sorry for him. "So you're the one who poisoned the arl."

Jowan started an intense study of his shoes. "I'm not proud of it. The arlessa had no idea what I was hired to do when she took me in to tutor Connor. I... I know it looks suspicious, but I'm not responsible for the creatures and the killings in the castle. I was already imprisoned when all that began. At first, Lady Isolde came here with her men demanding that I reverse what I'd done. I thought she meant my poisoning of the arl. That's the first I heard about the walking corpses. She thought I'd summoned a demon to torment her family and destroy Redcliffe. She... she had me tortured. There was nothing I could do or say to appease her. So they left me here to rot."

Despite the knowledge that the man had poisoned Eamon, a flare of anger shot through Alistair on hearing that Isolde had tortured someone. He believed in justice, but his idea of justice, no matter what the crime, no one deserved torture. As much as he hated Loghain, he would never consider torturing the man. Executing, yes, but cleanly, separating head neatly from body. Yes, that would do nicely. He shook his head to chase the image away. This wasn't Loghain he was facing. Not today. Not, he suspected, for some time yet. "Why did you poison Arl Eamon?"

Jowan looked up from his feet. "I was instructed to by Teyrn Loghain. I was told that Arl Eamon was a threat to Ferelden, that if I dealt with him Loghain would settle matters with the Circle." He shifted from one foot to the other. "You see... I'm a maleficar. A blood mage."

Morrigan's eyes widened in total surprise. "You? A blood mage? Truly? I never would have guessed."

Alistair wouldn't have either. Not any day of the week, month, year, or age. Or ever, really. On first glance, he didn't even think the man could hit someone with an arcane bolt, one of the most basic of a mage's offensive spells.

"Yes," Jowan replied. "I dabbled in the forbidden arts, and they condemned me to death for it. Loghain was giving me a chance to redeem myself. But he's abandoned me here, hasn't he?"

"Oh, yes, he has," Malcolm said, his face darkening further. "He tends to do that to people he claims to help. Then, once he's abandoned them, he'll place all the blame on them, coming out of the mess clean as the morning mist. Disgusting, really."

"When the templars caught me, they brought me to Denerim to await execution. Eventually, someone came to see me, alone. It was the teyrn. I'd seen paintings of him, so I knew. I thought he'd have me executed right there, but he said I could make up for my crime. He said Arl Eamon was dangerous to the nation and that I would be helping the country. Why wouldn't I believe Teyrn Loghain?" Jowan grabbed the bars of his cell door. "Everything's fallen apart and I'm responsible! I have to make it right somehow, I have to!"

Alistair almost believed the man was truly repentant. Almost. He looked over at Malcolm. His brother's brow was furrowed in thought, mulling the situation over. "But why did the arlessa need a mage to tutor her son? Tutors are Chantry brothers and sisters and priests. Not mages."

Jowan took step back and sighed. "Connor had started to show... signs. Lady Isolde was terrified that the Circle of Magi would take him away for training."

"Connor? A mage?" Alistair repeated. "I can't believe it." Yet he also believed Isolde would hide it. She claimed to be a pious woman and to her, a son being a mage would be an embarrassment. It wouldn't to Eamon, he was the type to love his son no matter what happened, and not to be embarrassed by something that wasn't even the humiliating sort. But Isolde... oh, how she tended to be the source of everything bad in Redcliffe. He even wondered if part of it had to do with the power she held as an arlessa. If Connor was a mage, he couldn't be Eamon's heir, and on Eamon's death, Teagan would inherit Redcliffe.

"She sought an apostate," Jowan continued explaining, "a mage outside the Circle, to teach her son in secret so he could learn to hide his talent. Her husband had no idea."

"Really? Arl Eamon had no idea of his son's abilities?"

"No. She was adamant that he never find out. She said that he'd do the right thing, even if it meant losing their son. And that infuriated her."

Alistair frowned. Isolde was right, Eamon would send Connor to the Circle. Otherwise, it would be too dangerous for everyone, including poor Connor. The boy had to learn to control his abilities. Alistair wasn't sure about the validity of the Harrowing, but he did believe that mages had to be taught to use their skills in the right way. Maker, even Morrigan had been taught. Sure, from an apostate maleficar, but taught by a highly talented witch nonetheless. He glanced at Morrigan.

"Circle or no, the boy would have to be instructed on his abilities. And I don't think this mage would be up to the task," the witch said, confirming Alistair's thoughts.

Alistair looked at the other mage, the blood mage. "Jowan, you still wear the robes of an apprentice. I take it you never went through your Harrowing? You're a bit old to not have passed that particular test."

The mage's face reddened in shame. "They never allowed me to. As frightened as I was, I knew I needed to. But the days went by and apprentice after apprentice—some even years behind me in studies—took and passed the Harrowing while I wasn't even given the opportunity to try."

"From what I know, the First Enchanter tried not to subject those who weren't ready to the Harrowing. It tended to lessen the chance for the mage in question to become possessed by a demon and turn into an abomination. They'd have killed you, you know."

Jowan's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"

"I was trained as a templar before I joined the Grey Wardens. I know how the Circle works, for the most part."

"Then you were a mage-killer."

Alistair shook his head. "No. I wasn't. I never had to kill a mage, and I don't particularly want to. Abominations, yes. Darkspawn emissaries? Without question. But..." he shrugged. "At least I've never truly been faced with that situation."

"I'm almost relieved," Morrigan said. "You really haven't wanted to kill me, Alistair?"

The former templar turned to her. "No. I'm too afraid of what your mother with do."

She glared at him and he had to resist smirking.

"Perhaps Connor is responsible for all of this. He could be the mage behind it," Malcolm said, and then studied Jowan with his penetrating gaze. "Could he? Did you teach him that?"

Jowan's eyes widened. "No! Even if I haven't taken the Harrowing, I know what it means to make a deal with a demon. I would never teach someone, in any way, ever, to do such a thing. Being a blood mage is one thing, but dealing with a demon? That is insane."

"Perhaps you aren't quite as incompetent as you seem," said Morrigan.

"Connor has little knowledge of magic, but he may have done something to tear open the Veil. With the Veil to the Fade torn, spirits and demons could infiltrate the castle. Powerful ones could kill and create those walking corpses."

Morrigan nodded. "Indeed." Then she turned and looked at Malcolm and Alistair. "I say this boy could still be of use to us. Why keep him prisoner here?"

"Let's not forget that he's a blood mage," Alistair pointed out. "You can't just set a blood mage free."

"Better to slay him?" Morrigan's arms crossed, indicating that she was ready to argue vehemently about the situation. "Better to punish him for his choices? Is this Alistair who speaks or the templar?"

"I'd say it's common sense. We don't even know the whole story yet. We still need to speak with Isolde, Teagan, Eamon. Maybe others."

Leliana spoke up for the first time since they'd entered the dungeon. "He wishes to redeem himself. Doesn't everyone deserve that chance?"

Morrigan raised an eyebrow. "Like yourself, you mean?"

Alistair raised his own eyebrows. He'd forgotten how well Morrigan could observe people and, to that end, how deeply she could understand them. If raised differently, and not such a bitch, she could've been a great addition to their group. Instead, her insights led to comments that cut deep, as she'd just done to Leliana.

"Everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves in the Maker's eyes," Leliana replied, trying to sound resolute and failing. "This man no less than any."

Alistair looked at Jowan again. Yes, the man was repentant, it seemed. The mage had been tricked by Loghain, something they all could relate to. He sighed. Why did the mage have to be a _blood_ mage? If he weren't, it would be so much easier to decide. Yet, he'd just told the man he never wanted to kill a mage, just abominations. But a blood mage... a potentially _useful_ blood mage. He wondered if Grey Wardens used blood mages. They did, after all, claim to go to any lengths to combat the Blight. Of course, anyone who might have known the answer to his question had been rather inconveniently killed by Loghain. "He's a blood mage," he said out loud, "but this is an unusual situation. I don't know."

Malcolm looked all of them in the eye in turn before going back to Jowan. "I'm letting you out."

"You're letting me out?" Jowan asked, unbelieving. "And what then?"

"You come with me, that's what. "

"I'm... I'm not sure that's a good idea. I'd like to help out, but... I'm not sure I want to follow you into danger, exactly."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "You're a blood mage. You're _walking_ danger. If you can't acquit yourself in combat, hide in the rear. Either way, you're coming with us." He pointed to Morrigan. "And don't even think about arguing. She's a Witch of the Wilds. She could out-mage you in her sleep."

Morrigan merely arched an eyebrow in Jowan's direction. The blood mage visibly flinched.

As Malcolm opened his cell, Jowan looked as if he might object again, but a glare from Malcolm kept him silent. Jowan kept to the rear as they advanced through the castle, Alistair leading the way. They came across a ridiculous number of walking corpses, so many that Alistair started to wish for good old darkspawn again. They found the main hall locked from its side door, and of course locked so well that Leliana couldn't pick it. Alistair showed the group a shortcut to the courtyard. Leliana ran and pulled the lever to let Ser Perth and his knights inside, while the rest of them dealt with the corpses who objected to them playing in their front yard.

Perth had his men finish securing the keep's yard, and the rest of them strode easily through the front doors of the castle, followed by the main hall. Once inside, they found Bann Teagan, as if being controlled by a puppeteer, doing a jester's dance in front of Isolde and Connor. The boy noticed the adults who had walked into the room, flicked his fingers, and Teagan stopped and sat down nearby.

"So these are our visitors," Connor said, sounding decidedly un-little-boy-like. Instead, his voice held the resonating tone of demonic possession. The boy was an abomination. He _was_ the one behind everything. "The ones you told me about, Mother?"

"Yes, Connor," Isolde answered from beside her son.

Connor pointed at them. "And this is the one who defeated my soldiers? The ones I sent to reclaim my village?"

"Yes." Isolde closed her eyes.

"And now it's staring at me! What is it, Mother! I can't see well enough."

If the demon couldn't see fully from Connor's eyes, it meant that it didn't have full control over the boy. Not yet. But there was little time—the demon was strong, and Connor had little training in magic and resisting possession.

"They... they are just men and women, Connor. Like me. Like your father."

Connor scowled. "Oh, I am tired of hearing about him. Besides, he's nothing at all like Father. Look at him! Breathing, not dying in the slightest! I could change that, mind you..."

Isolde opened her eyes and almost grasped her son by the shoulders. "Connor, I beg you, don't hurt anyone!"

Alistair figured it was much, much too late for that. Connor had already hurt several people.

The boy seemed to wobble a bit on his feet, and then blinked several times. His hands went up to his face, almost clawing at it. "Mother? What's happening? Where am I?" Connor's true self had fought through the demon, however momentarily it would be.

"Oh, thank the Maker!" Isolde wrapped her arms around her son. "Connor! Connor, can you hear me?"

Then the demon came back, pushing Isolde away and onto the floor. "Get away from me, fool woman! You are beginning to bore me!"

Isolde slowly got up from the ground. "Alistair, Malcolm... please don't hurt my son. He's not responsible for what he does!"

Anger burned through Malcolm's blue eyes. "So _he_ is the evil force you spoke of."

"No! Don't say that!"

Morrigan's fingers played across the magical staff she held in her hand. "So, the boy is an abomination and sundered the Veil?"

Tears came to Isolde's eyes. "Connor didn't meant to do this. It was that mage!" She pointed at Jowan. "The one who poisoned Eamon! He started all this! He summoned this demon! Connor was just trying to help his father!"

Jowan wisely kept his mouth shut.

Morrigan, however, was under no pressure to do the same. "And made a deal with the demon to do so." She turned to Connor. "Foolish child."

Alistair had to grant Morrigan one thing—she was intelligent.

Connor threw his hands in the air. "It was a fair deal! Father is alive, just as I wanted. Now it's my turn to sit on the throne and send out armies to conquer the world!"

"You're a bit late to that party," Malcolm said. "Loghain already has that going on for him. You don't want to be a copycat, do you? You'll have to find something else to do."

"Nobody tells me what to do!" Connor shouted from his spot in front of the fire.

"Noooobody tells him what to do!" Teagan said cheerfully. "Nobody! Haha!"

The possessed boy turned quickly to Teagan. "Quiet, Uncle! I warned you what would happen if you kept shouting, didn't I? Yes, I did." He looked back to the others. "But let's keep things civil. This man will have the audience he seeks. Tell us... what have you come here for?"

"I came here to stop you," Malcolm said, his tone even.

"I'm not finished playing!" Connor whined. "You can't make me stop! I think it's trying to spoil my fun, Mother!"

"I... I don't think..." Isolde stuttered.

No, the blasted woman didn't think, Alistair thought. A glance at Malcolm told him that he fully agreed.

"Of course you don't! Ever since you sent the knights away, you do nothing but deprive me of my fun! Frankly, it's getting dull. I crave excitement. Action! This man spoiled my sport by saving that stupid village, and now he'll repay me!" The boy then bolted while behind him, more corpses decided that death was also decidedly not fun, and started walking and attacking them. Isolde hid in a corner, but Bann Teagan, obviously under the demon's control, drew his sword and attacked with the undead.

Alistair quickly ran to Teagan and knocked him out with the pommel of his sword before he could get any more hurt. Now practiced in re-killing the undead, it took only minutes to dispatch the corpses. With the last corpse snarling its way back to the grave, Isolde ran out of her corner and over to Teagan, trying to wake him up.

"Teagan! Teagan, are you all right?"

Teagan's eyes slowly opened and held the man's personality again and not the glazed-over look of the demon-controlled. "I am better now, I think. At least my mind is my own again." He carefully stood up with Isolde's help.

"Blessed Andraste! I never would have forgiven myself if you died, not after I brought you here. What I fool I am!" Isolde turned to the others. "Please! Connor's not responsible for this! There must be some way we can save him!"

Malcolm's anger had grown exponentially since they'd first entered the hall. "You knew about this all along," he said.

"I don't see how you could forgive yourself for all the others who have died," Alistair said, joining in, his own ire threatening to take over. "If you hadn't tried to hide Connor's abilities by contracting an apostate mage to tutor him, he wouldn't have been able to get inside the castle, he wouldn't have been able to poison the arl, your son wouldn't have tried to make a deal with a demon, and none of this would have happened!" Incensed, he started for Isolde, not knowing what he'd do, but Leliana moved forward with amazing quickness and held him back.

Tears ran freely down Isolde's cheeks. "I... yes. I didn't tell you because I believed we could help him. I still do."

Morrigan sighed. "Clearly, the child is an abomination. There is only one way to stop it." She didn't specify what that method was. All of them knew it, but no one wanted to talk about killing a child. Especially one who had been well-meaning, and put on the path to possession because of a short-sighted, selfish mother.

"He's not always the demon! Connor is still inside him, and sometimes he breaks through. You saw it! Please, I just want to protect him!"

Both Alistair and Malcolm went to start in on Isolde again, but Teagan got to it first. "Isn't that what started this? You hired a mage to teach Connor in secret. To. Protect. Him."

"If they discovered Connor had magic," Isolde said, trying to defend herself yet again, "then they'd take him away! I thought if he learned just enough to hide it, then—"

"Then what, Isolde? Hmm? Continue to risk his life and everyone else's lives around him, not knowing if he truly has the skill to fully control his abilities, not just hide them?"

The arlessa didn't answer.

"What are our options?" Malcolm asked after an uncomfortable silence.

Alistair decided that it needed to be said. "I wouldn't normally suggest slaying a child, but... he's an abomination. I'm not sure there's any choice."

"We can't kill a young boy, demon or no demon!" Leliana said before anyone else could agree, or even disagree. "Please don't say we're considering that!"

Bann Teagan looked sadly toward the door that Connor had run through. "Connor is my nephew but he is also possessed by a terrible demon. Death would be... merciful."

"No!" Isolde jumped in front of Teagan, and then whirled and stared at Jowan. "What about you? You should know something about this demon. You're lucky to be alive, Jowan, after all you've done."

"You're lucky to be alive yourself, Lady Isolde," Malcolm said, fury lacing his words. "You may deny it, but you are as much at fault as he is. Almost as much at fault as Teyrn Loghain is, and I think everyone here knows how I feel about him. So watch what you say when you try to judge other people, because you should be asking the Maker for His forgiveness for what you've done."

The room fell silent, Malcolm's condemnation ringing in their ears.

Isolde gaped at Malcolm. Malcolm glared at her in return, daring her to speak out in her defense. She didn't, and the room stayed silent.

"Jowan," Alistair asked quietly, "what are our options?"

The mage squirmed. "Um... we have a couple. We could enter the Fade and deal with the demon directly, but we would have to do something to get into the Fade. It would require either blood magic or a lot more lyrium than I and probably you have on hand. So that's what we have to choose between—lyrium or blood. With blood magic, we could enter the Fade as soon as possible. But to get that much lyrium, you'd have to go to the Circle and back, which is a few days' journey from here."

Malcolm looked over at Morrigan and Alistair. "Would there be a way to secure Connor were we to go to the Circle?"

"Yes," Alistair said. "I know of spells and barriers that the templars and mages use to secure a Circle in case there's ever a... problem with abominations and such. If we can get the boy into a windowless room, and if Morrigan would help me, we could secure the door magically, enough to hold him for a few weeks if need be. You wouldn't have to worry about him starving or dying of thirst, either. The demon would sustain the body. The templars have many records of such things."

"I will help," Morrigan said. "I'm of no mind to slay a child if it can be avoided."

Bann Teagan nodded. "All right, then. Let's go see where the boy ran off to."

Together, they searched the castle's floors before finding Connor in an almost-empty room on the top floor. While the possessed child glowered at them from inside, trying to bait them to enter the room, they shut the door in his face. Morrigan and Alistair moved quickly, Alistair explaining and Morrigan casting all while the demon screamed in rage from the other side of the door. Soon enough, it was sealed.

"It will hold," Alistair said, studying the barrier. "For a few weeks, anyhow. I'd recommend leaving Jowan here, just in case. I know he's a blood mage, but things would go much more in his favor if he continued to help by watching this barrier and keeping an eye on Connor. But we need to leave as soon as possible."

Bann Teagan gave them what supplies he could find to spare, and the group made their way back down to the village, eager to be out of the castle. They found their horses, rounded up Gunnar, and set out for the Circle of Magi. Alistair wondered how they'd react to Morrigan.

And then things started to look up.


	14. Chapter 14

**14**

**Malcolm**

They left Redcliffe before the day was out, seeking out a camping spot that would be well away from the undead and darkspawn. Though they'd managed to clear out the village and castle, none of them felt comfortable enough to stay anywhere near them overnight. Not until Connor had been dealt with. So they traveled a few miles east on the Imperial Highway, searching for one of the narrow fords across Lake Calenhad that Alistair had mentioned. Otherwise, they would have to go around the entire shore of the lake in either direction to get to the official docks for the Circle Tower. One apparently couldn't just show up unannounced in a boat of their own. It would be too easy.

As the sun threatened to drop entirely below the horizon, the group finally found a suitable glade with no sign of civilization or darkspawn. The exhausted company immediately set to pitching tents and getting a fire going. Then they took turns running off to the stream nearby to bathe as best they could. And as quickly, since the stream proved to be rather cold, they ran back. Freshly cleaned, Malcolm got as close to the fire as he dared. Alistair had taken it upon himself to make the night's meal, much to everyone's displeasure. Except for Gunnar, but he was the least choosy of any of them.

Alistair graciously handed out bowls and ladled up what Malcolm thought _might_ be some sort of stew. He eyed it suspiciously. Leliana, still quite unsuspecting as she'd not truly experienced the wonder's of Alistair's cooking, dug right in. Two bites into it, and she had started looking at the food with the same suspicion as Malcolm.

"Alistair," she said, slowly stirring the stew with her spoon, but avoiding actually eating it, "what is this soup you made?"

Alistair looked up, a grin plastered on his face. "Oh, that? That's a traditional Ferelden lamb and pea stew. Do you like it?"

"So... this is lamb, then? It has a certain texture I don't normally associate with lamb."

"They didn't make lamb and pea stew for you in Lothering?"

The bard shrugged. "We ate simply there. Whole grains, made into biscuits or bread, or vegetables from the garden, cooked lightly. No heavy stews."

Just listening to her describe food from the Chantry was making Malcolm impossibly hungry and yet entirely not hungry for the food in the bowl he held.

"Ah," Alistair said with a knowing nod. "So the last lamb you had was probably cooked Orlesian style. Food shouldn't be frilly and pretentious like that. Now, here in Ferelden, we do things right. We take our ingredients, throw them into the largest pot we can find, and cook them for as long as possible until everything is a uniform grey color. As soon as it looks completely bland and unappetizing, that's what I know it's done."

Leliana gave him a blank stare. "You're having me on." She turned to Malcolm. "He's having me on, yes? Or is this a Grey Warden thing?"

"I didn't spend enough time with the other Wardens to know," Malcolm replied, suddenly wondering what it must've been like to be a Grey Warden when there had been more than two Wardens in all of Ferelden. It must have been a good experience if Alistair missed it as much as he did. And it must've been a true brotherhood for Alistair to feel as strongly as he did over their deaths. His eyes dropped back to his bowl.

"Leliana, if you would like something edible, you may share with me," Morrigan called from her side of the camp. "I can't share with the two Grey Wardens because the amount of food they consume is abominable."

The bard placed her uneaten stew in front of Gunnar and quickly made her way over to Morrigan. Gunnar, obviously not minding what color his food was, went right to cleaning out the bowl. Malcolm sighed and ate his bland, unappetizing, yet hot, food. Once he'd finished, he set the bowl aside and looked at Alistair. "So, I need to know something."

Alistair slowly lowered his spoon. "What's that?"

"What exactly did you _do_ to Isolde to make her hate you so much?"

A half-smile tugged at Alistair's mouth. "When Isolde first married Eamon—which caused no end of troubles in of itself because she's Orlesian—she was bothered by the rumors that pegged me as Eamon's bastard. They weren't true, but they existed. The arl didn't care because he knew the truth, but the arlessa kept caring. She knew the truth, yet could never bring herself to believe it. That's why I was packed off to the monastery at age ten. Even though I was angry, it came as somewhat of a relief. The woman despised me and my entire existence and made sure that Redcliffe no longer felt like a home to me." Where he'd started his explanation with a hint of humor, it ended with a tinge of sadness.

"What an awful thing to do to a child," Malcolm said, meaning it. Even though his mother had threatened more times that he could count to send him off to the Chantry, she never would've followed through. Well... he was mostly certain she wouldn't have.

Alistair shrugged. "She felt threatened by my presence."

"You were there first. It didn't give her the right to throw you out just because she became the arlessa through marriage."

"She didn't throw me out on the street."

"No. Instead, she had you locked up in a monastery where you could be entirely hidden, not fostered by an arl." Malcolm scowled. "My parents would've taken you in, even then."

"Really?" Alistair sounded almost hopeful.

"Yes," Malcolm replied quietly. "Yes, they would have. They wouldn't have thrown you out, either, no matter what you did. And let me tell you, I did a _lot_ to test that theory. But they kept me around even still. Loved me as their own. Never told me anything." He looked up from the dirt and over at Alistair. "What was it like growing up knowing? With others knowing?"

Alistair studied the fire for a moment before answering. "They treated me differently. I was always the bastard prince instead of just Alistair. In the Chantry, the commoners thought I was putting on airs and the noble boys just called me a bastard and ignored me. I hate that it's shaped my entire life. I never wanted it, and I certainly don't want to be king. The very idea of it terrifies me. And I know that must all sound stupid to you."

"No, it doesn't. I wouldn't want to be king, either. If it's anything like being a teyrn, but on a larger scale, it must suck. I never envied Fergus at being the heir to Highever."He tossed a bit of kindling into the fire.

"You really think your family would've taken me in as a boy?" Alistair asked, almost shyly.

"Absolutely. I never would've suspected, or even knew, that I wasn't theirs from the way they treated me. And I don't think they would've treated you any differently. You know, I always wondered why my mother hated Isolde so much. I figured it must've been because she was Orlesian and it was just hatred stemming from the Rebellion. Looking back, she must've hated Isolde for what she did to you. I mean, my mother, the one who raised me, was given pretty much the same task as Isolde—to raise one of Maric's bastards as her own. She did and she never made me doubt it. Never even told me. Not until..." he trailed off, the image of the fire burning in front of him disappearing. Instead, he saw his parents on the floor of the larder, his father's blood making the stones slick underneath them, his mother readying her bow to fire every last arrow she had into all of Howe's men that dared come through.

_You are our son._

_ Maker, my enemies are abundant._

_ We have always loved you as our own._

_ Many are those who rise up against me._

_ And always will._

_ But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me._

_ Never forget that._

The whole time, Duncan had been pulling him away by his leathers, almost dragging him through that servants' tunnel. Suddenly, Malcolm was having a hard time breathing. They'd barely made it out. Duncan had proven he could not only move fast, but that he could also move with swift, deadly silence. Had the man chosen to leave Highever Castle on his own, he would have not been under any threat at all. It was Malcolm who had proven to be the risk. He just didn't have that sort of finesse. That, and he hadn't particularly wanted to escape at the time, so he wasn't quite as attentive as he should have been.

At one point he'd caught a glimpse of Arl Howe and had started after him without a second thought. Duncan had grabbed him and practically thrown him against a wall. _"Are you trying to get yourself killed?"_ he'd asked, as much a yell as a whisper could be. But the man had never given Malcolm a chance to reply. _"Nevermind. I already know what your answer would be. So here is mine—I'm not going to let you kill yourself, no matter what you might think you can do to stop me from saving you."_

Duncan had been right. Just those words had cowed Malcolm into obedience. Sullen, silent obedience, but obedience nonetheless. Given the situation, he figured Duncan was happy with at least that.

"Malcolm?"

He blinked several times to rid himself of the images of the attack. "Yes?"

Alistair was giving him a rather curious look. "You kind of faded away there for a bit. I said your name a bunch of times and you didn't answer. I was about to sic your own dog on you."

He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

At some point, Alistair had retrieved his heavy chainmail shirt and had started cleaning it. His hands worked at it, but he kept his eyes on Malcolm. "What happened to you? At your castle?"

"You'll just hit him again if he answers," Leliana said, sitting down near Alistair. "That's not very nice."

Malcolm stared into the fire. "It's not my castle anymore. It's Fergus's, if he's still alive. Anyway, I'm sure Arl Howe thinks it's his now, anyway. So it's all gone. That's all any of you need to know—that my past really doesn't exist anymore. Okay? Good." Malcolm looked around, saw the blank stares from each of them, including Morrigan, who had been walking in from her own fire, and decided it was time for him to sleep. He turned his back on all of them and crawled into his tent.

Once inside, he let out the breath he'd been holding. He couldn't explain to them what'd happened. He knew, now, that he was the one who'd been at fault. That he hadn't been able to see the big picture, to see what really mattered—the Blight. He'd been a selfish brat who had kicked and screamed through every dragging step it took to bring him into the Grey Wardens. And now here he was, one of the last two in Ferelden, not even really deserving of the title. He felt false. That at some point, someone would figure it out, that he wasn't really meant to be a Grey Warden. Just like he wasn't meant to be a prince, either.

Odd, how Ser Gilmore had predicted it. And more odd, how he never would have believed in a thousand ages that it would've been true. At least the responsibility of taking the throne when they regained it wouldn't be his. He had Alistair, an older brother, for that. But if Alistair knew what'd happened, how he'd acted in more detail, he'd hate him. Be ashamed of him. Just as much as Malcolm knew Fergus would feel if he knew how his little brother had acted.

Malcolm lay on his bedroll and started at the off-white canvas above him. What was he playing at? Being a Grey Warden and a bastard prince? Who was he to think that they could stop Loghain? Stop the Blight? That's what Cailan and Duncan were for. What Bryce and Eleanor Cousland were for. What even Arl Eamon was for.

But not him. Not the kid who had to be conscripted because he got mad at the timing of it all. Not the kid who'd let a man die without apologizing for being an idiot.

His mind continued to beat him up until he fell asleep. Barking outside his tent woke him up near dawn. Despite his mood, the tiredness had at least gone away as he'd slept. The other three chatted as they packed up the camp, even Morrigan seemed amiable, at least as much as she was capable. Perhaps she was picking up his slack, Malcolm thought. He figured his dark mood would've lifted during the night, but he remained bleak.

Alistair led them to the ford, and they cut a couple days of journeying off their time by crossing there. They camped within minutes of the small inn and the official dock that the Circle used, deciding they'd go over in the morning. Saying nothing of what'd happened the previous evening, Malcolm rejoined the others in conversation before the night was out—it felt too awkward, otherwise. The others made sure not to make any mention of what'd happened in Highever before he'd come to Ostagar. That suited Malcolm, and he put all of those events into a tiny box to be stuffed away in his mind for as long as possible. Preferably forever. His sleep, however, was restless. The archdemon left him alone in his nightmares, so his memories took over where the Blight had left off. After a few hours of repeatedly awakening in a cold sweat, Malcolm gave up on sleep. He exited his tent quietly, strapped on his armor, slung his sword and shield on his back, and headed for the water's edge.

The sun had barely started to hint at the far edge of the horizon and pinkish tendrils strained upward from behind the distant Frostback Mountains. The glassy dark surface of the water reflected only the dark sky, for the moon had already set. Fog clung low to the ground as the land held itself in the limbo between night and day, the Circle Tower barely visible in its place at the middle of the lake. Footsteps sounded in the dewy grass behind him. Malcolm's hand went immediately to his sword and it was halfway out before a voice said, "Do not be alarmed. 'Tis only I."

He dropped the sword back into its scabbard. "Morrigan."

She moved quietly next to him, her eyes on the lake as well. Malcolm suspected that she'd allowed her footsteps to be heard. She had the skill to move silently if she so wished. For a few moments, she said nothing, granting him his quiet. Then she said, "How very fitting that they would build a prison for mages in the middle of the lake and make it look like a giant phallus."

He felt a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "I dare you to say that to the Knight-Commander of the templars when we go out there today."

Morrigan sighed. "About that. I would like to be left behind at the camp for this particular foray. While I am not afraid of these templars, I would prefer not to push the issue. Were things to get, shall we say, tense, it has the potential to get very ugly."

"Yes, it could," he said, "and that would certainly be counterproductive to our efforts. But you may stay behind on one condition: you let Gunnar stay with you. And don't try and tell me you hate the dog, because I know you feel quite the opposite about him even though you try not to act like it is so. In fact, I think you like him the most."

"You don't have to sound so smug about it."

"I was just making an observation." He cocked his head to the side. "You usually aren't one to shy away from confrontation. Is this a moment of being prudent or have you been hunted by the Chantry before?"

Her eyes stayed on the Tower. "My mother was hunted from time to time, yes. By templar fools like Alistair, which should tell you how successful they generally were. Flemeth made a bit of a game of it, in fact. The templars would come again and she would look at me and smile and say that the fun was to begin once more."

Malcolm decided to ignore Morrigan's dig at Alistair. If he addressed every single one of them, he would never be done addressing them. "You really had no trouble with them?"

"Once, my mother was divested of a particular grimoire by a most annoying templar hunter. It occurred long before I was born, but even today, Flemeth speaks of the loss with great rage. If you happen across it when you're in the tower, you might want to consider liberating it. I am most interested to see its contents should you find it. The grimoire is leather-bound and adorned with the image of a leafless tree." Then the witch shrugged. "Other than that, I am unsure if they were trouble. I was too young to understand, and perhaps 'twas bravado on Flemeth's part. Or perhaps she was merely amused, I will never know. Flemeth would warn them. Once. 'Twas a warning they inevitably failed to heed. And then... the true game began. Often Flemeth would use me as bait. A little girl to scream and run and lure the templars deeper into the wilds and their doom."

"She used you as bait? Her own daughter?"

Morrigan sounded both bewildered and wistful at the memories."'Twas a game and I a young girl. If I didn't get to play, I would have been very upset. Thankfully, the Wilds is a vast place. Once they found us, Flemeth would simply move us elsewhere and we would be lost within the forest once again. I did not understand the danger we faced until I was much older. I had never heard of apostates or maleficarum."

"Do you think they got what they deserved?"

"I do not know. Perhaps they did. Perhaps they didn't. Still, I do not begrudge them doing what they believe is necessary. The Chantry sees any mages not leashed to the Circle of Magi as apostates. And apostates invariably become maleficarum, evil mages that resort to blood magic and become demon-enslaved abominations." She sighed. "It may even be true. Still, those of us who prefer freedom see no reason to submit."

"But you did say before that mages need teachers."

"Yes, I did say that. And I meant it. Mages do have the potential to do many dangerous things, such as sundering the Veil and summoning demons. A young mage must be taught what the dangers are, how to avoid them, how to control and develop their power so that it does not control them. A good teacher must be a good mage, but that does not mean they have to be a part of the Circle of Magi. I'm certain there are bad teachers both within and without. The foolish blood mage we met in Redcliffe is a fine example." She scoffed. "Blood magic. People seem to think there is so much power in blood magic, but it is just the opposite."

"It is? It was my understanding that people think it's powerful because blood mages can control other people."

"You could, yes. But that sort of thing requires you to drain your own life's blood or to sacrifice another. You either have to drain yourself or allow yourself to rely entirely on others for the source of your power. It is a weakness in that soon, it controls you, just as a demon would. I prefer not to be weak."

He nodded, and then turned to her. "Did you come out here specifically to talk about all of that?"

She blinked at him in surprise. "I... no. I saw you leave the camp and I had thought that perhaps you'd decided to run away and leave us all behind."

Malcolm went back to studying the distant Tower. "No. I wouldn't do that."

"How much of what Alistair has said is true?"

"You mean about me being conscripted? It's true. I was. Against my will. I tried to run away from Duncan once and thought about it a dozen other times. I wanted nothing to do with the Grey Wardens. Or Duncan. Or Alistair or Cailan or any of it. But no matter what I said or did, they wouldn't kick me out and they wouldn't let me go."

"And yet here you stay. Nothing compels you to do so."

He rounded on her. "The _Blight_ does. I couldn't see it then but I do now. No matter how I feel about any of this or what happened to me in my past, the Blight is here and now. It has to be stopped. But once that's done..." he shrugged, losing steam. "I don't know. Everything I knew is dead and gone." He'd been unwillingly thrown into near total responsibility in stopping something that normally required thousands of men and women by a man who'd gone and died. And every time he got angry about it, or thought ill of his situation, he knew himself to be selfish and self-centered. Not something any parent or brother would be proud of, adoptive or natural.

Surprisingly, Morrigan had not stormed away during his little tirade. Instead, she'd folded her arms across her chest and studied his face intently. The look her her eyes was soft, almost caring. Malcolm started to feel a bit of the same connection as he'd felt with her outside of Ostagar. He willed himself not to shiver.

"I think your problem is the opposite—much of what you have is alive, and there's more living than you ever would have thought. But you won't allow yourself to live because you still think you should be dead. So the nightmares of where you think you should be torture you on the nights the archdemon leaves you alone."

He looked away.

Morrigan reached out and touched his right cheek, the one with the scar. Her fingers traced it lightly, causing him to look at her. "Would that I had healed this better," she said quietly, "but even if 'twas so, you have many scars on the inside that you won't even allow yourself to see, more painful and deep than any on your skin. Hooks and thorns from your past tear at them, and if you do not deal with them, they will rip you into nothing at all." With a final gentle caress, she withdrew her hand, and then walked back to the camp.

Behind him, the sun broke over the horizon, its warm light chasing the fog away from the water and surrounding land. It was dawn.

After taking a moment to collect himself, Malcolm headed for the camp as well. He and his companions ate a quick breakfast, and then geared up for the day at the Circle. Since Morrigan and Gunnar would be staying behind, and camp would be more than well enough safe between a witch and a mabari hound, they could leave most of their things there. A quick farewell was said, and then Malcolm, Alistair, and Leliana went for the dock.

They found a young templar there, doing his best to appear solemn and serious, his arms crossed over his silverite plate armor adorned with the Sword of Mercy. "You!" the young templar practically shouted at Malcolm, uncrossing his arms to point directly at him. "You're not looking to get across to the tower, are you? Because I have strict orders not to let _anyone_ pass. Anyone."

Malcolm resisted the urge to sigh heavily and wondered how often Duncan had had to put up with this sort of thing. "I am a Grey Warden seeking the assistance of the mages." This time, he managed not to flinch when he referred to himself as a Warden.

The templar re-crossed his arms. "Oh, you're a Grey Warden, are you? Prove it."

Suddenly, Malcolm wished there'd been some sort of mandatory tattoo given during the Joining that only Grey Wardens could bear. How else was he supposed to prove he was a Grey Warden? To other Wardens, proof wasn't needed. They could sense the taint in each other. "Prove it?" he repeated.

"Kill some darkspawn. Come on. Let's see some righteous Grey Wardening."

"There aren't any darkspawn here," Malcolm pointed out, even though he wanted to shove a righteous boot up this templar's ass.

"That's good, I suppose. Wouldn't want darkspawn smeared across the landscape. I hear their blood is black. Is that true?" The templar narrowed his eyes. "You'd know if you were a Grey Warden."

He considered punching the templar and knocking him out so he could just take the boat over himself. But, that would end up causing a scene and more trouble than he was dealing with now. He sighed, unable to hold it in this time. "Kill a darkspawn and find out for yourself."

The templar scoffed. "That's a Grey Warden job, you'd know that if you were one. Anyway, it was nice chatting with you. Now, on your way. Right now. Go."

Malcolm crossed his arms and fixed the young templar with a glare filled with all the sour mood he'd had in the past few days. "I warn you, my patience is wearing thin."

The templar finally got the message, his face registering shock, followed quickly by worry for his own safety. "Uh, is that bad? Look, I'm just trying to do my job. I'll take you right now, just like you wanted!"

"Yes, please do," Alistair said from behind Malcolm. "Before he causes an unfortunate incident. He's known to do that sort of thing."

The templar, who introduced himself as Carroll, hurried them into his little boat before Malcolm gave in to his urge to maim him. Alistair, Leliana, and Carroll carried on a conversation, but Malcolm paid little attention. He was trapped in his own mind again, trying to focus on the task at hand, but failing. His memories held him until the boat bumped up against the dock beneath the Circle Tower. The three of them tumbled out of the boat and Carroll set right back across the lake, getting away from Malcolm as quickly as humanly possible.

Were Malcolm not in such a dark mood, he would've laughed. A cavern waited just beyond the dock with a templar standing just outside of it, yet another guard.

"It's terribly gloomy down here," Alistair said. "I'm glad I never became a full templar and got stationed here somehow. I'd have gone crazy. And it's so quiet! How can anyone stand it?"

The templar near the cavern's opening glowered at them, but let them past and up on the stairs into the Circle itself. The group strode into an entryway filled with templars either scurrying about on a task or listening intently to a man who looked like the Knight-Commander. "And I want two men stationed within sight of the doors at all times," the older man was saying. "Do not open the doors without my express consent. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ser!" the templars chorused.

The man sighed. "Now we wait. And pray.

Alistair frowned and glanced at Malcolm. "That man is Knight-Commander Greagoir. I met him once. He always seemed level-headed not not quite this... drastic. As I recall, shutting the door and throwing away the key was definitely templar plan B."

Malcolm navigated his way through the room of men and women clad in plate armor. "What's going on here?"

The man looked at them in alarm. Obviously, he had not been expecting to entertain any guests. "We are dealing with a very delicate situation. You must leave, for your own safety."

"But the Grey Wardens have need of the mages to help defeat the darkspawn,"Alistair said. "We've the treaty for it right here."

The Knight-Commander sighed loudly. "I am weary of the Grey Wardens' ceaseless need for men to fight the darkspawn, but it is their right. However, you'll find no allies here. The templars can spare no men, and the mages are... indisposed. I shall speak plainly: the tower is no longer under our control. The Circle is lost. The tower has fallen."

Malcolm scowled. "Sounds like the templars haven't been doing their job."

Greagoir didn't react angrily, which is what Malcolm expected. Instead, he seemed slightly hurt. "My men did what they could, but it wasn't enough. They took us by surprise. We were prepared for one or two abominations—not the horde that fell upon us."

Alistair, more knowing of templar matters, stepped forward to investigate. "What's your plan?"

"I would destroy the tower," Greagoir replied, "raze it to the ground, but I cannot risk more of my men. The doors remain shut and they will protect us for now."

"You shut everyone in there? Including innocent mages?" Malcolm couldn't keep the accusation from his tone.

Again, Greagoir looked hurt and not angry. "Not just mages, but my templars also. I had no choice. The abominations must be contained at all costs. We do not mean for the doors to stay closed forever. Everything in the tower must be eliminated. I have sent word to Denerim, calling for reinforcements and the Right of Annulment."

Even though he didn't know precisely what that meant, the words and their implication made the hairs on the back of Malcolm's neck rise. "The Right of Annulment?"

"It gives templars the authority to neutralize the mage circle completely." The Knight-Commander sighed one more time, looking very world-weary. "The mages are probably already dead. Any abominations remaining must be dealt with, no matter what. The situation is dire. There is no alternative—everything in the Tower must be destroyed so it can be made safe again."

There was no way that everyone in the Tower was dead. He thought of Morrigan, one mage who would never fall to an abomination. Then he remembered the Circle Mage he'd met at Ostagar: Wynne. Had there not been such a rout at the battle, Wynne would be in there, too. But most likely, she had already died in the battle that killed so many others. "The mages are not defenseless," he finally said. "Some must still live."

Greagoir shrugged. "If any are still alive, the Maker Himself has shielded them. No one could have survived those monstrous creatures. It is too painful to hope for survivors and find... nothing."

The image of Fergus immediately came to Malcolm's mind. However painful hope might be, the pain had to be worth it. Sometimes it was all that kept someone alive, that kept someone going. That kept someone _believing_. "But you shut them all in," he said out loud, unwilling to share any thoughts related to his missing brother.

"And what was I to do? Leave the door open as the abominations poured out?"

"He's... he's right," Alistair said to Malcolm. "All Circles have doors like these, to prevent abominations from getting loose. It's a much, much stronger version of the door Morrigan and I set up in Redcliffe."

Malcolm took in the information, and believed it, but refused to believe that the Tower was beyond hope. Not with all these powerful mages. Not all of them could be so stupid as to make a deal with a demon. "People in there might need help. You can't abandon them." He couldn't figure out why he felt so strongly about this. Had it anything to do with how felt toward Morrigan? Had life turned out differently, Morrigan would be trapped in there with the other mages.

Finally, Greagoir found some anger. "It is the innocent folk of Ferelden who matter. I would lay down my life, and the life of any mage or templar, to protect them. No abomination must cross the threshold."

"I'm going in," Malcolm told him.

For a moment, the Knight-Commander looked as if he might argue. Then he nodded. "A word of caution before you go in. Once you cross that threshold, there is no turning back. The great doors must remained barred. I will open them for no one until I have proof that it is safe. I will only believe it is over if the First Enchanter stands before me and tells me it is so. If Irving has fallen, then the Circle is lost, and must be destroyed. May Andraste lend you her courage." He stepped aside and allowed them to pass.

A contingent of templars watched the entrance, all in combat stances, while two more opened the doors. When Malcolm, Alistair, and Leliana passed through the doorway, a feeling of doom settling over them, strangling the feelings of hope they clung to as they went in search of survivors.


	15. Chapter 15

"The first of the Maker's children watched across the Veil

And grew jealous of the life

They could not feel, could not touch.

In blackest envy were the demons born."

—_Canticle of Erudition 2:1_

**15**

**Wynne**

Wynne watched as the demon's body sank into the stone floor of the Circle Tower, vanquished. She heard heavy footsteps from behind her and she whirled around, expecting templars with Swords of Mercy at the ready.

Instead, it was a young man she had met at Ostagar, one of Duncan's new recruits. A young man she'd thought long dead with all the other Grey Wardens. But she couldn't risk that the templars had sent a Grey Warden in to do their dirty work and she brought her staff to bear. "Come no further. Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand!"

The boy, Malcolm, she remembered, raised his empty hands to show her that he meant no harm. "I'm not here to fight."

Wynne studied him for a long moment, seeking the truth from his eyes. Yes, he told truth. She put her staff on her back for the time being. "I will accept that, for now. But what are you doing here, then?"

Malcolm, who'd been looking around the room disbelievingly at the situation, looked to her again. "I came here seeking the aid of the mages, actually, in two different matters."

"And you were told that the Circle was in no shape to help you, I suppose." She frowned. "So why did the templars let you in? Do they plan to attack the Tower now?"

"Not yet. The Right of Annulment has not arrived."

She sighed heavily, disappointment pressing her will downward. "They sent for it then. I feared they might have. What else could they do? So Greagoir thinks the Circle is beyond hope and probably assumed we are all dead. They have abandoned us to our fate, but even trapped as we are, we have survived. If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them."

He glanced at the door Wynne had blocked off with a powerful spell, one that glowed purple within the door's frame. "What happened here? Greagoir wasn't exactly specific in his explanation."

Anger at Uldred's actions—and at Loghain's—surged through Wynne, chasing away some of the disappointment. "Let it suffice to to say that we had something of a revolt on our hands, led by a mage named Uldred. When he returned from the battle at Ostagar, he tried to take over the Circle. As you can see, it didn't work out as he had planned. I don't know what became of Uldred, but I am certain all this is his doing. I will _not_ lose the Circle to one man's pride and stupidity." There were too many innocent mages, too many innocent children at stake to just give up.

Malcolm noticed Wynne's determined anger. "So what do you intend?"

"I erected a barrier over the door leading to the rest of the Tower, so nothing from inside could attack the children." It had been the least she could do. "You will not be able to enter the Tower as long as the barrier holds, but I will dispel it if you join with me to save this Circle. Once Greagoir sees that we have made the tower safe, I trust he will tell his men to back down. He is not unreasonable."

The young man studied the barrier for a moment, considering her offer, before looking at her again. "We'll help you." When he answered, the determined set in his eyes matched her own.

Wynne turned to the older apprentices. "Petra, Kinnon, look after the others. I will be back soon."

Petra, bless her, asked, "Are you sure you're all right? You were so badly hurt earlier. Maybe I should come along."

"The others need your protection more. I will be all right. Stay here with them. Keep them safe and calm." For they would need it. She turned to Malcolm. "If you are ready, let us go end this." He nodded and as a group, they moved to the shielded door. "I am somewhat amazed at myself for having kept it in place this long."

"You did what you had to, Wynne," Alistair said softly.

She sighed. "It made me very weary at times, but I had to stay strong, to keep us safe. Be prepared for anything. I do not know what manner of beasts lurk beyond this barrier. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"All right. Be on your guard." With a single movement of her staff, the barrier disappeared, and the small group set forth into the tower. Almost immediately they were beset by fiery rage demons. Wynne stayed at the back, healing the young warriors and the young woman as they battled the demons. Alistair and Malcolm worked as a team that could have been battling together for ages, but Wynne knew the young men had only met at Ostagar. There was a kinship between them—she had seen it in their faces and their personalities even when she'd first met them. Yet something separated them now, despite how well as they worked together in combat.

The defeated demons disappeared through the ground. Malcolm made a mistake and immediately moved forward over their remains. As he walked over them, both burst into fire, and set Malcolm's armor on fire as well. He yelped in alarm, and Wynne did what she could to allay the damage. Once the fire burned itself out, the armor proved to have taken the brunt of the damage. "First rage demon, I take it?" Alistair asked.

Malcolm glared at him. "You could have told me that they burst into flame after you kill them."

"But what would the fun in that? The face you made! Fantastic!"

But Wynne knew the ex-templar novice had also not seen a rage demon prior to the two they just had. "He didn't know either, Malcolm." And she glared at Alistair for his attempt at causing derision in the ranks. The boy at least had enough sense to look abashed at his behavior.

They continued their journey, checking all the rooms and corridors, before moving to the second. To her surprise, one of the Tranquil stood in front of the stockroom as if it were a normal day at the Tower. "Please, refrain from going into the stockroom," Owain said when they approached. "It is a mess and I have not been able to get it into a state fit to be seen."

Malcolm, seemingly unfamiliar with the emotionless Tranquil, asked, "What are you doing here?"

Owain looked at Malcolm somberly. "I was trying to tidy up, but there was little I could do."

The young man glanced pointedly at the door. "Don't you want to get out of here?"

"I tried to leave, when things go quiet. That was when I encountered the barrier. Finding no other way out, I returned to work."

Wynne scowled. "Owain, you should have said something! I would have opened the door for you."

"The stockroom is familiar. I prefer to be here."

At times, trying to convince a Tranquil of anything seemed like arguing with a stone wall.

"But it seems safe enough now," Malcolm said.

"I would prefer not to die. I would prefer it if the Tower returned to the way it was. Perhaps Niall will succeed and save us all. But I would stay here in the meantime."

"Succeed at what?" Wynne asked.

"I do not know, but he came here with several others, looking for the Litany of Andralla."

The Litany. Blast it. "But that protects from mind domination. Is blood magic at work here?"

Had Owain not been Tranquil, he would have shrugged. "I do not know."

Wynne frowned. "Niall was in the meeting," she muttered to herself. "He would know. Blood magic. I was afraid of this."

Malcolm, sharp young ears that he had, heard her. "How is it worse?"

She faced him. "Blood magic could control us, too. Who knows what could happen then? We must find Niall. The Litany will give us a fighting chance against any blood mages we encounter."

"I wish you luck," said Owain. "Perhaps this will be over soon and things will return to the way they were."

But Malcolm had already plunged through the next door.

Wynne wondered what drove the young man. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something had changed in him. At Ostagar, before the battle, she'd run into Duncan after she'd met Malcolm and had discussed the boy with him. It was hard not to notice the young man's reluctance about being a Grey Warden and she knew Duncan tried not to force recruits to join. Her old friend had repeated the story of the massacre at Highever and how he felt he'd botched the entire recruitment enough that he'd had to invoke the Right of Conscription. She knew enough of Duncan's history to know how much it must have pained Duncan to tear the young man away from his dying family. Duncan's family had also all perished except for him, when he was even younger than Malcolm.

Later in the camp, when Alistair and Malcolm had approached her about Malcolm's injury, and listening to the two of them mock each other, she'd been reminded of the young, impish Duncan she'd met long ago in the Circle Tower. He'd been caught out with a mage apprentice his own age by his Commander, and Wynne had been summoned to deal with the apprentice in question, while Duncan's solemn and highly embarassed Commander dealt with the young Grey Warden. Wynne hadn't seen, and had yet to see, a young man flush so badly. Oh, and then the uproar when First Enchanter Remille discovered that Duncan had somehow stolen his prized dagger had been wonderful to see. No one had liked the Orlesian anyway. Good on Duncan for stealing his things. And in the end, the dagger had saved the young man's life.

The following years had done much to mature Duncan, and he'd grown into a fine, patient leader, as much as she suspected he would. Though, at Ostagar, sometimes she'd catch glimpses of the imp lurking in her friend's dark brown eyes, even through all his gruff seriousness. It had saddened her greatly to hear that he'd fallen in the battle, but she also knew it was a better death for him rather than him to have to go on his Calling. And she'd known it had been near, he'd told her as much. She could see he'd done a good job of recruiting the two determined young men with her now. Even if one of them had objected strenuously, enough to constantly test Duncan's limits.

It was definitely a good thing Duncan had developed his almost infinite patience by then. That, and the man had really had a soft spot for his recruits, and felt their development as men or women and Grey Wardens was his responsibility. And if that meant the involuntary recruits took their anger out on him, he didn't object as long as it didn't extend to others and didn't get out of hand. Wynne knew that Malcolm's anger had yet to bubble over, and the boy's sense of duty, however much he may be buried it, had compelled him to undergo the Joining, and now compelled him to battle the Blight still.

And now, that meant dealing with the abominations and demons in the Tower. They made their way to one of the many libraries and found a few blood mages surrounding an abomination. One whispered, "And now Uldred's gone mad, and we are scattered, doomed to die at the hands of those who seek to right our wrongs."

Another heard one of their footsteps and all of the blood mages whirled around to attack. A smite from Alistair knocked them all to ground, an arrow from Leliana took out one permanently, while Malcolm took out another, and went for the last.

But the woman held up her hands and yielded. "Please, don't kill me."

Showing exquisite martial control, Malcolm stayed his blade mere inches from the mage's neck. "The people you killed didn't want to die, either," he pointed out.

"I know I have no right to ask for mercy, but I didn't mean for this death and destruction. We were just trying to free ourselves. Uldred told us that the Circle would support Loghain and Loghain would help us be free from the Chantry. You don't know what it was like. The templars were watching, always watching."

Alistair scowled, taking offense even though he was no longer a Chantry templar. "What you've done will make things worse for future mages," he said.

"We thought that someone always has to take the first step. Force change, no matter what the cost."

"Nothing is worth what you've done to this place," said Wynne, her knuckles white from her hand's stranglehold on her staff. These men and women had killed so many in their attempt to free themselves. Such foolishness and folly, serving to prove to the Chantry that oversight was needed. That mages couldn't be level-headed, normal people.

"And now Uldred's gone mad, and we are scattered, doomed to die at the hands of those who seek to right our wrongs," the blood mage told Wynne.

"You know we cannot allow blood mages to live." Alistair's hand flexed on the grip of his sword.

"But I... I would like a chance to atone for what I've done. Please, if you spare me I... I could escape and seek penance at the Chantry."

Alistair barked a short, scornful laugh. "You know, they'll never take you. They're very picky about who they let in. Harlots, murderers, yes. Maleficarum? Oh, no."

The young woman with the two Grey Wardens, who Malcolm had introduced as Leliana, a former lay Chantry sister, said, "Your comments betray your ignorance, Alistair. The Chantry accepts all, regardless of what they've done."

Alistair's scowl moved from the blood mage to his companion. "Well, it seems you're familiar with a whole other Chantry, because the one I know wouldn't hesitate to shove a Sword of Mercy right through her heart."

Malcolm looked between the former templar and the former lay sister, and then down to the blood mage who had wisely stayed on the floor. "I feel inclined to agree with Alistair." Wynne could see that part of the young man was still reluctant at taking another person's life, but the larger part of him believed in the greater good, of the future.

"I just want my life," the blood mage said. "Please."

"Your death will be your penance," Malcolm said quietly, and then did just as Alistair had said—ran his sword through the blood mage's repentant heart.

They left the room quickly, the blood from the dead mage's wound had barely started to seep across the stones. The rest of the demons on the floor fell to their blades, arrows, and magic. They stumbled into what Wynne recognized, even through all this mess, to be Irving's office.

"This must be the First Enchanter's study. Look at all these books. You think he's read all those?" Alistair asked.

"I would hope so," Malcolm said. "Hold on. Morrigan asked me to look for something."

"_Morrigan_?" Alistair repeated. "You're going to take something from the Tower for that witch?"

"To be fair, it belonged to her mother first. The templars took it from Flemeth."

"With good reason, I imagine." Alistair sighed. "Fine, do whatever you want. I suppose it's better to be keep her happy rather than find yourself on fire or turned into a toad."

Malcolm ignored the vague permission his brother had given him. "Found it," he said, taking a single book from one of Irving's many. Wynne saw that the volume was leather-bound, and she glimpsed the outline of a leafless tree on it. Interesting. It looked to be a grimoire of sorts. Then she wondered if it was this Morrigan that these boys had met in the Korcari Wilds. If it were, and this woman traveled with them, Wynne decided she must meet her. A mage, an apostate with that much power, would be a force to be reckoned with for certain.

Malcolm stuffed the book into his pack, and then left the rest of the room untouched. Wynne almost smiled. This young man was no rogue. Had Duncan been alive and with them, she knew that he would have combed the room for useful items and _maybe_ have apologized to Irving for taking them later. No matter how much they grew up and became responsible adults, one could never really take all the rogue out of them.

The third floor presented them with an eerie silence. The other floors, though infested with demons, abominations, and blood mages, had carried noise of some sort. This floor, this floor had nothing. "Everyone's gone," she said out loud, "or dead." She feared the worst.

They met with no opposition in their walk around the circle and into the Great Hall. There, the reason for the silence presented itself, turning around slowly, as if it'd been expecting them. "Oh, look. Visitors," it said in a gravelly voice. "I'd entertain you, but... too much effort involved."

A sloth demon. She readied herself, tried to put up some sort of barrier, even as she noticed that Niall had already fallen to the sloth demon, his body laying unconscious on the stone floor nearby.

"Killing demons is enough entertainment for me, thanks," Malcolm said.

"But why? Aren't you tired of all the violence in this world? I know I am. Wouldn't you like to just lay down and... forget about all this? Leave it all behind?"

"Resist!" Wynne said as loud as she could, but the protest sounding much too weak. "We must resist else we are all lost!"

"Can't keep eyes open," Alistair said slowly. "Someone pinch me."

Leliana attempted to shout at the demon, but her words came out frail. "I'll not listen to your lies, demon. You have no... no power over me."

Malcolm seemed rooted in place, his eyes blinking rapidly, an attempt to keep himself awake.

"Why do you fight?" the sloth demon asked, sounding truly bewildered. "You deserve more. You deserve... a rest. The world will go on without you."

The demon's last words followed them as they collapsed into slumber.

Wynne's eyes opened to a bustling mid-day in the Tower, the scurrying of apprentices' feet everywhere, the laughter of the youngest apprentices as they pulled a trick and thought they would get away with it. Yet Wynne knew without question that she was in the Fade. Even as a child, she had always known when she was dreaming as she slept. She always knew when she was in the Fade. At her great age, the Fade was almost familiar in its touch.

And here she was again.

The children's laughter echoed along the halls of Kinloch Hold, thwarting Wynne's efforts at remembering where she had been before this foray into the Fade. Something about the Tower... other mages... the thoughts slipped through her hands, mocking her inability to keep them. Apprehension filled her, that she wouldn't be able to get back to where she was meant to be, to help whoever she was supposed to help.

Then the apprehension drifted away and comfort replaced it, gentle and warm. Ah, the Spirit who had helped her with Petra. Another old friend. The protection of the Spirit drove away the distractions and the truth of her being here became clear—a sloth demon in the Tower had placed them here. A sloth demon controlled a portion of the Fade, granting a person either a lovely perpetual dream, or a horrible perpetual nightmare, all depending on his whim. Usually, it was a good enough dream that that person would never want to wake up, and the person would waste away in the outside world, giving the demon the energy it desired. With the protection of the Spirit, Wynne had not been trapped for very long in her own dream.

But the others... she doubted they could really tell. Yes, there were always doubts, but they would be wiped away almost as quickly as they formed. Wynne closed her eyes and willed away the Tower, willing herself into the raw, ethereal Fade. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the strange ground of a Fade island, with the Black City hanging off in the distant sky. She had to find the others, she had to wake them up in here first so they could find the demon and kill him and escape to where they were meant to be. She hadn't wandered long when she found her first doorway. Pushing any remaining fear aside, she stepped through it.

On other side, she found herself outside a small but well-built house. Several children ran about playing a game of tag, giggling as they played. A unfamiliar, red-haired woman stood just outside the open door, a serene smile on her face. At a nearby table sat the young former templar, contentedly watching the children, a plate of cheese by his hand. Wynne had taken only one step when Alistair noticed her, jumping to his feet. "Hey!" he said cheerfully. "It's great to see you again! I was just thinking about you. Isn't that a marvelous coincidence?" He motioned toward the woman standing at the door. "You remember Goldanna, of course? My sister? These are her children, and there's more about... somewhere. We're one big happy family, at long last!"

This would be Alistair's dream, having the love and support of a family. Being a part of a family. She remembered the young man from the glimpses she'd caught of him around the encampment at Ostagar. Affable, very friendly, joking and dry sense of humor. At times, he followed Duncan around like a puppy, eager for approval from what he saw as a fatherly figure. It had been very apparent that Alistair had found a sort-of family within the fraternity of the Grey Wardens, but with the tragedy that had been the battle, he'd lost all that he'd found. Then again, he hadn't lost everything. In all of that mess, he'd discovered his brother, one who had also managed to survive despite the odds. She had to remind him of that fact. That he had a family on the outside, however small, and however troubled. One that was real.

"Get away from them, Alistair," she said as she walked toward him. "This a trick. You don't have a sister."

Alistair frowned at her. "Why would you say that? What are you talking about? Of course I have a sister, I looked her up before... well, before."

"Alistair, is your friend staying for supper?" Goldanna asked.

He looked pleadingly at Wynne. "Say you'll stay! Goldanna's a great cook. Maybe she'll make her mince pie." He looked over at his false sister. "You can, can't you?"

Goldanna gave him a warm smile. "Of course, dear brother. Anything for you."

"Alistair, that is not your sister. This is the Fade. In reality, you have no sister. You have a brother. Would you abandon him? Would you deny his existence? Don't believe any of this."

Alistair looked hurt. "How can you say that about Goldanna? She's... she's the soul of goodness! You're acting really strangely."

In her voice she reserved for particularly unruly apprentices, Wynne said, "Think about this and how you got here. Think carefully."

The former templar sighed. "All right, if it makes you happy." He made a face as if he were in deep thought. "I..." He frowned. "It's a little fuzzy. That's strange."

"Alistair," said Goldanna, "come and have some tea."

He shook his head. "No, wait... I remember a tower. The Circle. It was under attack. There were demons. Before! Before Ostagar, I had looked records of my mother... found that I had a sister but never met her...but I had a brother. I met him. Duncan introduced me. And then Duncan died." Pain written clearly on his face, he closed his eyes. The images around them disappeared, replaced by the raw Fade. He opened his eyes and looked at Wynne. "It was so real."

"That's how the sloth demon traps you. Either you live in a wonderful dream or he punishes you with a nightmare. Let's hope you all have had dreams."

"All of us? Can we find the others? Wake them up in here?"

Wynne nodded. "We can try. We must try."

Some of the pain faded from Alistair's face, but not all. Wynne knew that it would be an injury Alistair would carry throughout his entire life. To be granted the very thing he wished, only to discovered that it had been a dream, and what he'd thought was merely a nightmare turned out to be the truth.

The two of them found another door and stepped through it together, and into a vast Chantry. In one of the wings, an entire choir sang the Chant of Light, its sound softly floating into every available space. "I doubt this is Malcolm's dream," Alistair said. "He's not exactly the religious type. At least not devout, anyway. This must be Leliana's." His brow furrowed. "I think it's a dream. Though I suppose for some it could be a nightmare, to be fair. Let's just find her."

The two of them discovered the bard in a far corner of the main hall, knelt before one of the small altars, and deep in her own recitation of the Chant. Wynne thought she recognized bits of verses from the Canticle of Benedictions, but she wasn't certain. Alistair looked from Wynne to Leliana and back again. "I think I can get her to snap out of it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Um, yes. I think." He quickly moved over to Leliana's side with Wynne trailing a few steps behind him. "Leliana. Now's really not the time for prayer," he said quietly.

Wynne nearly smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. That had been his brilliant idea?

"Who are you?" Leliana asked.

Alistair gaped at her. "It's me. Alistair. You know, funny guy, Grey Warden, nice hair, and happens to be a bastard prince? You did tell me that you liked my hair. I even wrote it in my journal. I'd show you if I had it on me. Which I don't so I don't know why I said that."

Leliana tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry, but I don't know you."

"Yes, you do. You've been traveling with me and my brother and his awesome dog and this crazy scary witch from the Korcari Wilds for almost two months. The Fade is playing tricks on your mind. You have to believe me. I thought it was all real, too, until Wynne found me like we just found you." He gestured around the hall. "All this, none of it is real. It's all a dream."

"Isn't real?"

He reached out and took one of her hands. "You have to trust me when I say it isn't real."

The bard's eyes softened a bit as she studied Alistair. "There is something familiar about you and... I find myself trusting you." She blinked. "Yes. I remember something about the Circle, demons, falling asleep—oh! Alistair!" Leliana jumped and hugged the suddenly blushing Alistair.

Wynne kept her chuckles to herself while Alistair extricated himself from Leliana's arms.

The Chantry disappeared from around them, placing them yet again in the raw Fade. "Where's Malcolm?" Leliana asked.

The mage sighed. "We haven't found him yet. But now that we've got you, we can go back to looking. It's my hope that he's in a dream and not a nightmare."

Leliana's eyes became sad. "The problem is, sometimes the dream is so good that when you wake up, you find yourself in your nightmare. Some people, they... they never want to wake up. Make no mistake, though, I was glad to be awakened from my dream. I would rather suffer with the truth than rejoice in a lie."

"That's the sort of attitude that keeps one mostly out of the clutches of sloth demons," Alistair said. "Unless he doesn't mess up the dream at all. Or you haven't got a brilliant mage with you."

Wynne located the next doorway and led the three of them through. They had one last person to find, and fearing the demon might have punished him with a nightmare, she readied herself for battle of some sort.

They found themselves in a small, ravaged kitchen, the sounds of battle on the opposite side of its closed door, the tang of fire drifting in through the cracks. A door on the other side of the room stood flung open, and they could see four people inside. A man lay on the floor, clearly injured, and a middle-aged woman was trying to lift him to his feet. Then someone else went to help and Wynne recognized him as Duncan. "We'll get you out, Teyrn Cousland," Duncan said. "Malcolm, show us the way to the servants' passage. Once we escape, we can bring your parents to Redcliffe. They will be safe there with Arl Eamon."

Malcolm appeared out from behind the trio. "And I'll continue on to Ostagar with you after? You asked me to join the Grey Wardens when you first came here. I hope that offer still stands."

Wynne realized that the two older people must be Malcolm's parents. The ones who had raised him.

"You must take him," said the injured man, Teyrn Cousland. "The Blight must be stopped. Eleanor and I can take revenge on Arl Howe later. We will not let his wants of seeking to advance in this chaos hurt the chances of all of Thedas surviving a Blight. Right now, the Blight is more important than anything else, including my life. Not that I'm not grateful for the aid in escaping. But you will take him, Duncan?"

"I have no intention of leaving him behind," Duncan replied, lifting the teyrn higher up so he might walk better. "But first we must get you to safety. I know Malcolm goes willingly."

"Of course I do," Malcolm said. "Why would I feel otherwise? The passage is—" he stopped short on seeing Wynne, Alistair, and Leliana and raised his sword. "How did you get in through that barred door without us hearing you? Who are you? More of Howe's men, I take it? I won't allow you to kill my parents!" His shield found its way onto his arm and he brought it forward.

"We aren't in service of this Arl Howe," Wynne said softly.

"I don't believe you. Why else would you be here? I know everyone who lives here. I've known all of them my entire life. You don't belong here."

"This isn't how it happened," Alistair said, taking a step forward and placing himself between Wynne and Malcolm, while Leliana disappeared into the shadows. "You were conscripted, you never wanted to be a Grey Warden. And your parents died here. They didn't make it. You must remember. Only you and Duncan made it out alive."

Malcolm looked back at his parents and Duncan, his father obviously hurt, but very alive. His mother had only a few scratches. "They're right there. You're just trying to confuse me and delay us until Arl Howe can come here and kill us himself. I won't allow it." He brought his sword to bear and charged Alistair, shouting at Duncan to get his parents to the passage.

Alistair brought up his own shield and blocked Malcolm's charge with it, sending his brother crashing off to the side. Then Alistair threw Wynne a frantic look, telling her that a serious sword fight between the two brothers would certainly lead to grievous injury to both of them.

But Alistair's defensive reaction had given Wynne enough time to ready her spell. She looked at Malcolm, who was almost back to his feet, and said, "That's quite enough out of you, young man," and cast a force field around him.

"No!" he shouted. "Don't kill them! Duncan, you have to get them out of here!"

"We can't kill them if they're already dead," Alistair said. "All of them. Including Duncan."

"No," Malcolm repeated, but his words were soft, broken. He was beginning to see the truth. "No, he was supposed to let me apologize. He just had to ask me, that's all. No one had to die." Tears formed a sheen over the lad's blue eyes, refusing to fall as much as he refused to believe these people were already dead.

Alistair looked in the direction of Malcolm's parents and Duncan. "But they did. You must remember."

The tears finally fell and the sounds around them faded away, taking Malcolm's parents with them. Yet the structure around them and Duncan's image remained, staring at them, his eyes full of rage, and then he transformed, his body becoming that of the sloth demon.

"If you go back quietly," the demon said, "I'll do better this time. I'll make you much happier."

"I doubt you could, " Malcolm said, his voice hitching.

Wynne dispersed the force field from around Malcolm. He was no longer the danger here, either to himself or others.

"I won't live like that, demon," said Alistair, "I would rather be free."

The demon spread his arms and looked directly at Malcolm. "I made you happy and safe. I was going to allow you to save them. I gave you peace. I did my best for you and you say you want to leave? You want to leave them to die all over again? Can't you think of someone other than yourself?"

Malcolm flinched, his face contorting like someone had kicked him in the gut.

Alistair, unconsciously moving protectively between Malcolm and the demon, raised his sword again. "Sorry, but I'd rather just be rid of your evil right now."

The demon seemed surprised, as if no one had spoken such impertinent words to him before. "You wish to battle me? So be it. You will learn to bow to your betters, mortal!" He raised his hands and shapeshifted into an ogre.

"Oh, come _on_," Alistair muttered. "What is it with ogres?" Then he leapt, something that apparently the demon wasn't ready for, because it didn't stop him. The force of Alistair's jump knocked the demon ogre to the ground, and Alistair quickly stabbed it straight through the head. They'd hardly had time to realize the ogre dead, however, before the voice of the sloth demon taunted them from the form of a rage demon that appeared behind Malcolm.

Malcolm spun around with sword and shield, cutting with each, shouting his anger through drying tears. Alistair ran over to help, expertly slicing the demon from vaguely-formed head to its liquid, non-existing feet. An abomination formed behind Wynne, shouting invectives at the three of them. Wynne put it into the crushing prison it deserved, and as the demon's malformed body twitched in pain, Alistair and Malcolm finished the job.

Then with a shriek, a shade attacked the shadowed Leliana, knocking aside her bow, the arrow falling uselessly to the stone floor. She dropped the empty bow and whipped out her daggers, shoving one into each side of the shade's head. The shade disappeared and the daggers dropped to the ground, ringing as they struck the stone.

"I will fight you in my true form!" came the sloth demon's voice, finally showing his full anger. An arcane horror burst forth in the middle of them all, knocking each of them over with its blast. Wynne reflexively cast a healing spell over the entire group before she'd even gotten up. Leliana was the first one to spring to her feet, her leather armor allowing her more speed than the heavy chainmailed warriors. Her bow had made it back into her hands and she started firing arrow after arrow into the horror, a determined smile on her face.

Alistair and Malcolm stood up at the same time. Malcolm moved around the horror's side, drawing its attention, while Alistair moved his arms in a motion Wynne had seen the Circle templars practice. As Malcolm taunted the horror, it gave Alistair enough time to call the holy smite and bring it full-force onto the horror that was the sloth demon. The white light flung the horror to the ground, where Malcolm was able to quickly run it through.

The demon faded from view, and this time, it stayed gone.

Malcolm remained rooted to his spot, his attention drifting to the empty place where the demon had been to the open door of the larder. A pool of blood had puddled across half the floor in there, blood enough for whoever had lost it to have died. Wynne saw the ghostly image of a prone body splayed over the blood. Another person knelt above the body, firing a steady stream of nonexistent arrows at some invisible enemy. Then there was a slight motion, and two more transluscent people appeared. One was Malcolm, dressed in leather armor instead of heavy chainmail, his back to the kitchen, obviously trying to return to the larder. Closer to the kitchen was the tall form of Duncan, his hand grasping the back of Malcolm's leathers, forcibly dragging the boy away from the grisly scene.

The real Malcolm ran forward, attempting to stop the ghostly version of Duncan, and his hands passed right through him instead, followed by the rest of his fear-propelled body. When he realized that he could do nothing, his face crumpled, registering the shock and hurt of reliving whatever had happened in Highever.

Then they woke up, back in the chamber where they'd met the sloth demon in the first place. Alistair was the first to stand, quickly walking over to help Wynne up. She graciously accepted—at times, she wasn't joking when she spoke of her weary old bones. Alistair then ran over to Leliana, the next closest person.

Wynne looked for Malcolm. Somehow, he'd ended up farther away from the rest of them, and was apart from them, sitting up and staring at nothing. After witnessing that boy's dream, Wynne wondered even more at just what exactly had happened at his home before he'd arrived at Ostagar. When her old friend had told her he'd botched the convincing part of his recruitment of the lad, he hadn't been exaggerating. Something had hurt the boy deeply back at Highever, enough that he was still clearly furious with Duncan when they'd come to Ostagar. And now, something had changed. Then Wynne realized what it was, judging by the boy's words in his dream. At some point, Malcolm had forgiven Duncan, but by the time he had, Duncan was dead. So the boy must assume that Duncan went to his death thinking Malcolm hated him.

Oh, youth. Wynne knew Duncan well enough to know that the man knew better than to think Malcolm's anger was hateful. But there was something to be said about closure, and Malcolm certainly hadn't experienced it. So the guilt shadowed him, plagued him through every action since he first became angry, and at times, the guilt would even bring the anger back, starting the cycle anew. The mage walked over to where Malcolm sat. She offered her hand and he looked up at her quizzically. "Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"

She smiled at him. "I seem to be on my feet and you do not. I assumed you needed help."

"Very funny," he said, and got up. "I wouldn't want to pull you over. Alistair might get protective and beat me up."

Alistair came over, Leliana close behind. "I wouldn't right now. There's a lot of other things that need my sword in their faces. My younger brother's impending beating can wait. We're nearly to the top of the tower. My bet is that if any mages are still alive, and this Uldred is holding them prisoner, he's got them in the Harrowing Chamber."

"How oddly appropriate," said Wynne.

They found Niall's body on the far side of the chamber, practically wasted away. Leliana quickly searched the body as Wynne said a few words over the young mage. The Litany of Andralla procured, they left the hall.

The sloth demon had apparently had full reign over this floor of Kinloch Hold, because they found no other opposition before they reached the room right outside the stairs to the Harrowing Chamber. Just inside the small room, they met up with an addled templar behind some sort of energy barrier. "Cullen?" Even as she asked, she knew it was him.

"This trick again?" The templar's eyes narrowed. "I know what you are. It won't work. I will stay strong."

Malcolm frowned. "What won't work?"

"The boy—Cullen—is exhausted. And this cage, I've never seen anything like it," Wynne said to Malcolm and the others before turning back to Cullen. "Rest easy. Help is here."

"Enough visions! If anything in you is human, kill me now and stop this game!"

"He's delirious. He's been tortured and has been denied food and water. I can tell." Leliana moved up to the barrier. "Here, I have a skin of—"

Cullen jumped away. "Don't touch me. Stay away! Filthy blood mages! Getting in my head. I will not break. I'd rather die."

How could they get the young man to believe them? Somehow, it had been easier with the others, when they'd been stuck in the Fade. "Calm down. You're safe now."

"Silence! I'll not listen to anything you say!" He closed his eyes. "Now begone!" After a moment, he opened his eyes and surprise showed in seeing them not gone. "Still here? But that always worked before. I close my eyes, but you are still here when I open them."

"I am no trick of the mind," Wynne said.

"Don't blame me for being cautious. The voices, the images, all so real. Did Greagoir send you? How... how did you get here?"

"Messily. Just tell me where the surviving mages are." Malcolm seemed to have lost his allotment of patience for the day.

Cullen frowned. "What others? What are you talking about?"

"Irving and the other mages who fought Uldred. Where are they?" Wynne asked.

Cullen's eyes drifted toward the stairs and door leading to the next room. "They... they are in the Harrowing Chamber. The sounds coming out of there... oh, Maker."

Wynne snatched her staff off her back and into her hands. "We must hurry. They are in grave danger, I am sure of it."

The templar ran back up to the edge of his barrier. "You can't save them! You don't know what they've become! They've been surrounded by blood mages whose wicked fingers sneak into your mind and corrupt your thoughts."

Alistair looked at the templar curiously, as if seeing him in a new light. "We can't just kill them all." He turned back to the others. "His hatred of mages is incredibly intense. The memory of his friends' deaths must be still fresh in his mind."

"You have to end it now! Before it's too late!" Cullen shouted, ignoring Alistair's comment.

Malcolm glared at him. "I will not kill an innocent. That's not what I came in here for. If I meant for innocents to die, I would've stayed outside the doors to the Tower as a whole and waited for the Right of Annulment to arrive."

Cullen didn't buy it. "Are you really saving anyone by taking this risk? To ensure this horror is ended, to guarantee no abominations or blood mages live, you must kill everyone up there."

"You don't seem to understand," Malcolm said slowly, "I'd rather spare maleficarum than risk harming an innocent."

"Fine! Be content in your ignorance of the truth. But what I can do but merely argue? As you can see, I am in no position to directly influence your actions, though I would love to deal with these mages myself."

Malcolm nodded. "Good. Then you can't cause any trouble." He turned his back on the trapped templar and started up the stairs.

"Maker turn his gaze on you," Cullen called after him. "I hope your compassion hasn't doomed us all."

"Without compassion, we are all doomed," Wynne told the templar.


	16. Chapter 16

**16**

**Alistair**

They entered the Harrowing Chamber to see a group of mages casting a spell on another mage. It held the victim in midair while he writhed in pain for minutes, and then dropped him straight to the ground. The air crackled with dangerous, magical lightning, wrapping the mage's body and lifting it up into the air again. This time, the mage hung limply, unmoving. One mage slowly spun his hands around and it spun the body in turn before a flick of the hand sent the victim's body to the floor again. More lightning flew from the other mages' hands, suffusing the victim's body until it began to change. The body grew, became more grotesque, and then Alistair realized he'd witnessed the birth of an abomination.

He felt like throwing up.

The mage who'd been spinning his hands looked away from his newly-made abomination and took in Malcolm and his group. "Ah, look what we have here. An intruder." The ethereal light in the chamber reflected off the man's bald head. "I bid you welcome. Care to join in our... revels?"

"I think I'll just kill you, if that's all right with you," said Malcolm.

Uldred, for there was no way it could be any other, laughed at Malcolm's bold words. "Fight, if you must. It will just make my victory all the sweeter."

Wynne, readying her staff, caught Leliana's eye before the bard found her place in the shadows. "Don't forget about the Litany. Read it out loud whenever you think he's up to something with any of us or the other mages!"

Leliana nodded once, and then melted into the darkness at the edges of the cavernous room.

In the center of the dais, Uldred's body changed from the middle aged man into the giant form of a pride demon. It roared. Alistair and Malcolm met its roar with one of their own and ran toward it. The two Grey Wardens seemed to dance in and out of the demon's reach, the demon's spells barely touching them. One of the demon's clawed hands caught Alistair's chainmail, tearing through the links and gouging through the flesh of his left shoulder. Alistair cried out and nearly dropped his shield.

Malcolm immediately shifted his position so that he covered Alistair's weakened shield side, making his own body a shield. There they started in on Uldred anew as somewhere in the background, Leliana kept reading the Litany to keep Uldred from making new abominations to fight on his side. Then Malcolm noticed Uldred's attention move from them and toward the shadows, searching for Leliana. Malcolm reacted instantly, shifting his weight, bringing his sword back, and leaping for Uldred's face. The demon turned around just in time for Malcolm's sword to sail through his open mouth and pierce the skull and brain behind it. The demon fell backward, and Malcolm, now standing on it, fell with it. Before he could jump off the body, it burst into flame.

"Blast it! Why must I always be on fire?" Malcolm shouted. Luckily, the flames burned out quickly, Wynne cast a healing spell on him soon enough to prevent any real damage.

A giggle came from the shadows and Malcolm glared in its direction, and kept glaring when Leliana stepped back into the light. "It's not funny," he said.

"Oh, but it is. At least when you don't get hurt."

"Hey," Alistair said from his seated position on the ground, "injured over here. I know I'm not on fire or anything, but this bloody wound burns like it should be on fire. I'm just saying, is all."

But Wynne had already arrived at the former templar's side, expertly casting another healing spell. Alistair could feel the tears on his back slowly healing and closing up, though the rips in his chainmail remained.

Malcolm, standing above him, studied the damage to the mail. "No wonder you felt your wound as burning. The mail seems to be melted wherever the claws had gone through it."

"Maker," a weary male voice said from another part of the room, "I'm too old for this."

"Irving! Are you all right?" Wynne abandoned a now-healed Alistair and went over to help the other mage up.

Irving ran a wrinkled hand through his grey hair. "I've been better. But I am thankful to be alive. I suppose this is your doing, isn't it, Wynne?"

"Not exactly," she replied. "I wasn't the leader, and I certainly didn't do it alone. You have these three young people to thank."

First Enchanter Irving looked to where Wynne had gestured. Alistair nodded at him. "We're actually here for the Grey Wardens. My name is Alistair." He pointed to Malcolm and then Leliana. "And this is Malcolm and Leliana."

"The Circle owes you all a debt we will never be able to repay," Irving said. "But first we must go downstairs. The templars await and probably expect the Right of Annulment to arrive any time now. We must let them know that the Tower is once again ours. I'm afraid I'll need you to guide me down the stairs. And all the way down, I'll curse whoever insisted the Circle be housed in a tower."

Alistair resisted the urge to laugh. He wasn't much a fan of towers himself. Not between the recent escapade here and their experience in the Tower of Ishal. He'd just as soon never be in another tower for the rest of his life, no matter how fantastic people claimed the view was. As the group slowly walked down all the flights of stairs, Alistair noticed that Malcolm hung back, unwilling to have anyone look him in the eye when they had time for idle chat.

He probably expected one of them would try to bring up what had happened in the Fade. For the time being, Alistair and the others left him alone at the rear of the group, no one falling back. He'd seen how his brother had looked at him after they'd woken up from the Fade. He wasn't sure if the others caught it, but he certainly had. Malcolm was furious at him and Alistair was starting to realize how Duncan must have felt all the way from Highever to Ostagar and then some.

When they reached the huge set of double doors on the first floor, Irving banged on them in a particular pattern. "Mages have secret knocks?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Templars never had secret knocks."

"I wasn't aware of any secret knock," Wynne replied. "Perhaps it's just a First Enchanter secret knock."

There was a thump from the other side of the doors as the bars were removed. Then they slowly opened to reveal a large group of templars, weapons at the ready, headed by a shocked Knight-Commander. "Irving? Maker's breath, I did not expect to see you alive!"

"It is over, Greagoir," Irving said, still sounding as tired as he had in the Harrowing Chamber. "Uldred is dead."

Cullen, the templar from outside the Harrowing Chamber, moved forward to stand beside Greagoir. "Uldred tortured these mages, hoping to break their wills and turn them into abominations. We don't know how many of them have turned."

Irving looked at Cullen in askance. "What? Don't be ridiculous, boy!"

"Of course he'll say that! He might be a blood mage! Don't you know what they did? I won't let this happen again!" Cullen started for his sword.

With speed belying his age, Greagoir's hand reached out and grabbed Cullen by the wrist. "I am the Knight-Commander here, not you," he said, looking directly at Cullen, daring him to test his resolve. "You will stand down."

Cullen, chastened, stopped fighting Greagoir's grip. "Yes, Knight-Commander."

Greagoir let go of the younger man's wrist and Cullen quickly disappeared into the crowd of templars. "First Enchanter, do you believe order has been restored?" Greagoir asked.

"Yes. I believe order has been restored to the Circle," Irving replied solemnly. "We will rebuild. The Circle will go on, and we will learn from this tragedy, and be strengthened by it."

The Knight-Commander turned to his templars. "We have won back the Tower. I will accept Irving's assurance that all is well."

Then surprisingly, Cullen's voice piped up from the gathered templars, "But they may have demons within them, lying dormant! Lying in wait!"

"Enough!" Greagoir shouted. "I have already made my decision. Cullen, as soon as I am done here, you will report to me. This insubordination, no matter what you may have suffered, will not be tolerated." He turned around to face the smaller group. "Thank you. You have proven yourself a friend of both the Circle and the templars. Now, if you will excuse me, you can see I have a lot of work to do." Without waiting for acknowledgement, the Knight-Commander walked away, directly toward Cullen.

Alistair looked at Irving, ready to make the confession about why they were here, but Irving spoke first. "Here we are, the Tower in disarray, the circle nearly annihilated, though it could have been much, much worse. I am glad you arrived when you did. It's almost as though the Maker himself sent you."

He shifted uncomfortably, starting to feel like an ass and wondering why Malcolm, who had taken the lead so often, had suddenly become a silent partner. And here were these mages, their Tower and lives basically ripped apart and gutted by Uldred's doing, and he had to ask them a favor. Two favors, in fact. "In all honestly, the Blight drove us here to seek aid."

Irving nodded. "I figured as much. After Ostagar, I'm sure the Grey Wardens are calling in all of their treaties, and they do have one with the Circle of Magi. Treaty aside, after what you did, the least we can do is help you against the darkspawn. I would hate to survive this only to be overcome by the Blight."

Alistair looked at him steadily. "So we have your word?"

"You have my word, young man, as First Enchanter. The Circle of Magi will join the Grey Wardens in the fight."

"Thank you," Alistair said, and allowed himself a small, true smile. Before he could say more, Wynne bustled over.

"Irving, I have a request. I seek leave to follow the Grey Wardens."

Alistair head nearly twisted off as he turned to Wynne. Not once in all those hours spent battling in the tower had she indicated that she'd want to travel with his unusual collection of companions. And even though she had seen their dreams and nightmares in the Fade, she still wished to travel with them?

"Wynne, we need you here," Irving said. "The Circle needs you."

Wynne smiled warmly at the First Enchanter. "I appreciate the sentiment, my friend, but the Circle will do fine without me. The Circle has you. These young people are brave and good and capable of great things. If they will accept my help, I will help them accomplish their goals."

"We would be honored to have you join us, Wynne," Alistair said when Malcolm stood there and said nothing yet again.

Irving sighed. "You were never one to stay in the Tower when there was adventure to be had elsewhere. I give you leave to follow the Grey Wardens, but know that you always have a place here."

"Thank you," replied Wynne.

"There is much to be done here and I must—"

Coming to his senses, Malcolm cut off the First Enchanter. "Wait, before you go. Can the Circle, or at least some of who or what you can spare, go to Redcliffe to save a possessed child?"

Irving shook his head in disbelief. "The child is possessed? But... killing the demon would mean killing the..." His eyes lit in understanding. "Ah, you intend to enter the Fade. Yes, yes it can be done with a group of mages. I shall gather who I can and we will leave promptly. Another life is at stake. The Tower can hold itself together with the lives it holds while some of us journey to save another."

"Thank you, First Enchanter," Alistair said. "We will see you at Redcliffe, then. We'll let you get to your work."

Their group now larger, they had to go in pairs across the lake instead of a cramped trio. Malcolm went in the first boat, and seeing hesitation on Alistair's part, and with Wynne gathering some last minute gear, Leliana jumped into the boat with him. The templar with rowing duty started out immediately. Alistair decided to wait on the dock, sitting on the edge with his feet dangling over the water. While they had toiled away in the Tower, night had fallen on Thedas. Soft footsteps alerted him to Wynne's approach. To his surprise, she sat next to him and dangled her own feet, which seemed to be something a woman of her age wouldn't do.

Alistair sighed. "He's furious with me. I don't know if the rest of you noticed."

"I noticed," said Wynne. "You may not realize it, but when you woke him from his dream, you unwittingly stopped him from saving his parents yet again. From what I saw after we had defeated the demon, Duncan must have dragged him from the castle against his will while his parents stayed and died."

"Why would he do that?" Alistair frowned at the water lapping at the wooden pillars of the dock. "He couldn't stay and save them like Malcolm had dreamed?"

"His father was gravely injured and from the look of it, he wouldn't have survived even if they got him out, and Malcolm's parents and Duncan knew it. It would have been folly to try, and would most likely have led to all of their deaths. I suspect the teyrna stayed of her own choice in order to stay with her husband. She loved him very much, I think, and didn't want to abandon him to die alone. But Malcolm is young and strong and a good fighter. Duncan saw a young man who would become a good Grey Warden, and as pragmatic as the man could be, Duncan also saw the chance to save at least one life from being wasted with an early, pointless death. Even if the boy in question didn't agree."

"So Malcolm was pissed at Duncan for saving his life?"

"No. He wasn't mad at him for that, not really. Part of it must be that Duncan didn't let him stay behind and die with the rest of his family. Another part of it, I'm not entirely sure. You see, at Ostagar, Duncan told me that his had made a mistake in how he tried to convince Malcolm to become a Grey Warden. He didn't tell me exactly how it happened, but it had ended up with Malcolm resenting Duncan and the Grey Wardens, and despite how Malcolm had wanted to become a Grey Warden prior to Duncan asking, when Duncan finally extended the invitation, Malcolm wanted nothing of it. I think he just ran out of time in the end. In that dream, Arl Howe's men had nearly broken down that door. They had minutes, if even that."

"Oh." Alistair looked out toward the far shore of the lake, where the first boat had disappeared from view. "Do you think he hated him?"

"No, I don't. If he did, he wouldn't be so upset that Duncan died at Ostagar. You're young, Alistair, and you might not be able to see it, but Malcolm regrets Duncan's death as much as you do."

Wynne was right, he hadn't seen it. "Huh."

She patted his hand. "Don't you worry. You'll get better at reading body language as you get older."

Wait, Alistair thought, Wynne had spoken with Duncan about Grey Warden matters at Ostagar? "Duncan must have talked with you with great detail. Did he know you before Ostagar or something?"

To Alistair's surprise, Wynne chuckled softly. "I'd known Duncan for over twenty years, ever since he was a rash youth and new Grey Warden brought to visit Ferelden by his Warden Commander. I remember them stopping at the Circle of Magi with King Maric in tow, all without Loghain's knowledge. They were going on an expedition to the Deep Roads in a small group. They seemed such a motley party. There was this white-haired steely, female Warden Commander, a dwarf who wore the clothing of the Silent Sisters, there was a tall hunter who look to be Avvar under that hood of his, two heavy-plated warriors with dashing good looks, a young elven mage, and of course Duncan. All of them so different, and yet all of them so much the same. Remille, the man who had been First Enchanter at the time, had decided to hold a very long, boring ceremony in honor of the king's visit with the Grey Wardens. Duncan got antsy and eventually his restlessness drove him to sneak out of the ceremony."

"Duncan? Snuck out on a ceremony? Really?"

"He wasn't always the calm, serious man you knew," Wynne replied. "And he must have shown some sense of humor around the Grey Wardens, didn't he?"

Alistair smiled. "Yes, he did. Before Ostagar and the Blight, anyway. After that, it became his one focus. He left on trip after trip trying to find suitable recruits for the Grey Wardens, but almost each time he came back empty-handed, saying that he found many good fighters, yet none of them gave any indication that they would be able to..." he paused, not knowing if Wynne was privy to some of the secrets of the Joining. Many senior mages were, though, because preparation required their help.

"Survive the Joining," Wynne finished. "I do know about the Joining. I was one of the mages who helped prepare at Ostagar."

Alistair nodded. "Yes. Duncan kept finding no one who he thought would survive, so he didn't recruit them. He said it would be an unnecessary waste, that if he was certain they wouldn't survive the Joining, that he might as well let them fight darkspawn as soldiers instead of being immediately dead Grey Wardens." He sighed heavily. "In the end, we had only three new recruits. Malcolm, a knight named Ser Jory, who was a good fighter and Duncan thought had a chance at surviving, and this cutpurse named Daveth. A cutpurse. I couldn't believe it, but then later I found out that _Duncan_ used to be one."

"Oh, but he was, and a good one. How do you think he snuck out of that ceremony so easily? And then the templars in the tower never saw him as he went around anywhere he pleased. Somehow, he managed to get ahold of the keys to the First Enchanter's study and steal a valuable, prized dagger of Remille's. And no, he never returned it. Said it saved his life later in the Deep Roads and they could pry it out of his hands when he was dead, and no sooner."

Alistair, even though he'd heard it from Duncan himself that he'd once been a thief, scarcely believed it. "If no one caught him stealing stuff, how'd anyone find out he'd been sneaking around?"

Wynne burst into hearty laughter. "His Warden Commander, who had finally figured out her wayward youngest Warden had absconded himself from the ceremony, came looking for him and brought me with her to guide her around the Tower. We found him in the senior apprentices' quarters and quite busy with one of the apprentices."

It took Alistair a second to work out exactly what Wynne had implied. Once he figured it out, he blushed furiously. "You're kidding me."

His statement only made Wynne laugh all the more. "Oh, yes, I'm telling the truth. I don't think I've ever seen a young man that embarassed, and despite how dark Duncan's skin was, he blushed more than you are right now. His Commander was speechless. I could barely keep myself from laughing. Duncan didn't look me in the eye until he and his group returned to the Tower from the Deep Roads. I sought him out and spoke with him, having decided that a young man as adventurous as that would serve a good friend. And I was right. To his own surprise, he eventually became a very good man and quite a good leader."

"I'll be damned," Alistair muttered, and then squinted at the lake's horizon, thinking he saw the boat returning. "But what will I do about Malcolm? I can't have him this mad at me while we're trying to gather up these armies. If you could see it, I'm sure others can. It wouldn't do for people to see that one of two remaining Ferelden Grey Wardens can't stand the other." He didn't even bring up the whole ridiculous problem of taking Loghain off the throne.

"It won't last long. It's an anger that won't be suppressed easily."

"Great. I love being yelled at. Really, I do."

The boat's form became clear, growing larger as it rapidly got closer to the dock. Alistair and Wynne got up and grabbed their belongings for the trip back to camp. The boat ride from Kinloch Hold to the shore was quiet, neither of them willing to discuss much in front of the templar. At the dock, they found Malcolm and Leliana waiting for them. Together, they trudged to the camp and made awkward introductions. To Alistair's surprise, Wynne didn't accuse Morrigan of being a maleficar. Alistair had decided long ago that the witch must be one and was certain that she didn't continue to travel with them out of the goodness of her heart. But Wynne was surprisingly tolerant, even warm to Morrigan. The witch, on her part, seemed caught off guard by the treatment and remained skittish.

They all shared a meal that Morrigan had made while they were away, another surprise to Alistair that the woman had been that thoughtful. Though, she probably did it to lull them into thinking she was nice. No, he'd still keep an eye on her. After they'd eaten, Malcolm claimed exhaustion and disappeared into his tent for the night. Alistair had thought it a lie, but tiredness soon found him and he had to amend his thinking.

They left for Redcliffe early the next morning and didn't even have to find an extra horse because Morrigan pointed out she could just shapechange into a wolf and travel just as fast that way. After trying to find some sort of objection to the action, Alistair couldn't find a flaw in her logic, and just went along with it. Driven by the thought of the little boy tormented by a demon, they traveled quickly and camped at the ford, planning on crossing at first light. That evening, Malcolm stayed at the fire with the rest of them, if not participating in the fireside chatter, at least listening to it. He told them he'd be taking first watch since he'd retired so early the night before. One by one the others drifted off to their tents to sleep, but Alistair remained behind, determined to at least speak to Malcolm before they had to face Bann Teagan and possibly Arl Eamon. He knew they had to present a united front, and at the moment, they were anything but.

And, Alistair realized, staring at his heavy chainmail, he needed to see if it could be repaired or if he'd have to find something in Redcliffe to replace it. He dragged another log toward the fire and set the chainmail on it, going over the links to see if he rips could be fixed in any way. As he studied them, he started to think that it was a complete loss, unless he wanted several unprotected spots on his back. And after traveling all that day wearing the ruined mail and feeling practically naked as a result, he didn't feel like doing it again if he could help it.

"What changes about you after the Joining?" Malcolm suddenly asked.

Alistair almost frowned. Malcolm seemed to ask questions out of the blue an awful lot. "You mean, other than becoming a Grey Warden?"

"Don't avoid the question. I want to know."

Alistair finally looked up from his armor and at Malcolm. "Hmmm. You know, I asked Duncan this, too, and all I got was 'You'll see.'" He said the last bit as a poor imitation of their former Commander.

Malcolm glared at him. "Just try that line on me."

He raised his hands to fend off the anger. "It's not that Duncan wanted to keep it a secret. It's just that the Grey Wardens don't discuss it much. From what I know, I gather it's not a pleasant topic. The first change I noticed was an increase in appetite. I used to get up in the middle of the night and raid the castle larder. I thought I was starving. I'd slurp down every dinner like it was my last, my face all covered in gravy. When I'd look up, the other Grey Wardens would stare... and then laugh themselves to tears." Alistair remembered that Duncan had been laughing among the others. Eventually, Alistair had joined in on the laughter too, after realizing the absurdity of it.

"I haven't felt anything like that," Malcolm said.

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Really? I saw you eating dinner the other day. Savage, that was."

"What? Take that back!"

Alistair started laughing. "Fine, fine. I take it back. But you keep shoveling down our rations like that, the entire party's going to starve." Then he sighed. "Oh, and then, there's the nightmares. Duncan said it was part of how we sense the darkspawn. We tap into their... well, I don't know what you'd call it. Their 'group mind.' And when we sleep, it's even worse. You learn to block it out after awhile, but at first it's hard. It's suppose to be worse for those who Join during a Blight. How is it for you?"

Malcolm grimaced. "Unpleasant."

When he didn't elaborate, Alistair continued, "Some people never have much trouble, but that's rare. Others have trouble sleeping their entire life. They're just more sensitive, I suppose. Everyone else ends up the same, though. Once you react a certain age, the real nightmares start. That's how a Grey Warden knows his time as come."

"His time has come?"

Alistair shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Of course it fell to him to explain all of this unpleasantness to Malcolm instead of Duncan or one of the other senior Wardens. Well, when they had been alive. They couldn't very well do it when they were dead. "Oh, that's right. We never had time to tell you that part, did we? Well, in addition to all the other wonderful things about being a Grey Warden, you don't need to worry about dying from old age. You've got thirty years to live, give or take. The taint... it's a death sentence. Ultimately, your body won't be able to take it. When the time comes, most Grey Wardens go to Orzammar and die in battle rather than... waiting. It's tradition."

Malcolm gave him a quizzical look. "Why Orzammar?"

Alistair shrugged. "You'll always find darkspawn where the dwarves are. The oldest Grey Wardens head to the Deep Roads for one last, glorious battle. Not that there's a shortage of darkspawn during a Blight, but that's the tradition. The dwarves respect us for it." He gave Malcolm a quick smile. "And you wondered why we kept the Joining secret from new recruits!"

"After what happened to Daveth and Jory, I never really wondered."

Alistair turned his attention to the fire. "You know, Duncan... he'd started having the nightmares again. He told me that, in private. He said if he didn't die during the Blight, that it wouldn't be long before he'd go to Orzammar himself. I guess he got what he wanted. I just wish it had been something worthy of him."

"He died fighting the darkspawn. It's a death he would have wanted. At least he got to die the way he wanted to. I didn't. I shouldn't even be alive."

And there it was. Before Wynne had explained it to him, Alistair would have assumed Malcolm was referring to them nearly dying on the Tower of Ishal. But now he knew that wasn't it. "Yes, you should be alive. There was no point in you dying back at Highever."

Malcolm shot right to his feet and started toward Alistair. "The point would have been to get my parents out of the castle and away from Howe's men. But you wouldn't know, would you? You're the one who kept me from rescuing them when I got a second chance. You're the one who stopped me and made me live, just like Duncan did. You should of left me there, like I wanted Duncan to. But instead, he dragged me out and made me join the Grey Wardens. He made me leave my parents to die when my place was with them."

Alistair found himself standing up to face off with his brother. "You think that all Duncan cared about was making you a Grey Warden? Another recruit for his cause?"

Malcolm threw his hands into the air. "Yes! Finally, you catch on. He wasn't the man you seem to think he was, you know. My dying father asked him to get me and my mother out of the castle and you know what Duncan did? Made him promise that I would join the Grey Wardens in return, because the Blight was what mattered in the end. He would've left us there to die if I hadn't, so my father agreed to the deal. Duncan turns to me and _invites_ me to the Wardens as if he and my father hadn't just worked out a deal between themselves. So I said no, straight out. After seeing that, I changed my mind about wanting to join. I wanted no part of your Grey Wardens any longer. But after I said no, he decided I didn't have a choice and invoked the Right of Conscription right there. Then he damn well dragged me out, not even trying to get my mother to leave when she decided to stay with my father. He didn't let me save them, didn't even let me try to save them. He should have left me there with them to defend them as long as I could. But he took that choice away from me." He shoved Alistair in the chest. "_That_ is the man you idolize."

Alistair remained still, not allowing Malcolm to pick a fistfight, and sifted through all the things Malcolm had just yelled at him. If Duncan extended an invitation instead of using the Right of Conscription straight away then Teyrn Cousland must have agreed that the Blight was the greater threat. "What did your father say after Duncan conscripted you?"

"What?"

"Do you really think your father wanted you to see you die? Did he say anything after Duncan conscripted you? Or was he already dead and you weren't admitting it?"

"He was still alive!" When Malcolm's face darkened in fury, Alistair realized too late that mentioning his father's death might have been the wrong thing to say. Malcolm ran at Alistair, but he was ready for it. He caught his brother with his arms, and Malcolm's momentum sent them both to the ground. There, Alistair worked on keeping Malcolm's fists from doing any significant damage, and not hitting back with his own. "That's my point! He was still alive and we could have gotten him out!"

"What did he _say_, then?" If Duncan had made the right explanation then Teyrn Cousland would have understood the threat of the Blight. And Teyrn Cousland would have realized that if the Blight wasn't stopped, then they would all be dead, and anything Malcolm might have done would be for naught. Maybe Malcolm might not have understood, but the teyrn would have. Duncan had. Alistair also suspected that even though Duncan had said that the knight, Ser Gilmore, had been his recruit of choice, that he hadn't been the first choice. Not if he'd tried so hard to get Teyrn Cousland's permission for Malcolm's recruitment, even in the face of certain death for the teyrn.

Malcolm suddenly stopped struggling and rolled away. Alistair sat up and looked at him curiously. His brother's face had gone pale, his eyes were wide, but no longer filled with the fury from before.

"He..." Malcolm looked away from Alistair's gaze, off into the darkened forest. When he turned back to Alistair, his eyes were filled with the same anguish that he'd had in the Fade dream. "He said it was for the best." His voice became scratchy and quiet as he continued, "He told me to agree even before Duncan conscripted me, but I didn't listen. I had thought Duncan was being a manipulative bastard, but my father didn't think so. He was trying to tell me that. Maker, my father _wanted_ me to go."

"He wanted you to live," Wynne's voice said from behind them. At some point during the argument, she'd come out of her tent and neither of them had noticed. The others were approaching them now, Leliana, Morrigan, Gunnar. "He wanted you to live and defeat the Blight, just as Duncan did. They were able to see the larger picture. You were a little preoccupied at the time. I think they understood that, too."

Malcolm turned to face Wynne. "How could you know?"

"She knew Duncan," Alistair said softly. "They'd been friends for a long time."

"Would he have left me and my mother?"

"No. He would have gotten you both out even if he hadn't conscripted you right then. But I believe he wanted your father to know you would be a Grey Warden, since that's what your father wanted for you. He admitted to me at Ostagar that he had worded things wrong back at Highever and instead of convincing you, he'd made you angry and resentful instead," Wynne replied. "Your mother didn't want to go and he had no sway over her love for your father. That's the only reason he made you leave her behind. But he wouldn't have let you die. That wasn't his way."

"But he dragged me away from them."

"I doubt you were amenable to living at the time, young man. And escaping from a massacre isn't really a time to try to convince someone of reason when they're determined to be unreasonable."

Malcolm drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them with his arms. Then he dropped his face onto his arms. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, barely audible over the crackling of the fire. "How could he even have thought I'd have made a good Grey Warden, then?"

No one knew how to answer that question properly and they stood there quietly, trying to think of the right reply, exchanging awkward glances between them. They all knew Malcolm would take the silence to mean they agreed that he wasn't a good Grey Warden. Yet even though they felt otherwise, that he was good at it whether he'd liked it or not, no one had said a word.

Gunnar bounded from where he'd been standing next to Morrigan and went to Malcolm. He shoved his large snout into Malcolm's face, making him look up. Then the dog licked it. "Thanks for the drool, Gunnar," Malcolm said, wiping at his face with his sleeve. The dog gave a happy bark in reply, ran around in a circle, towards the trees a bit, and back to Malcolm. "I think he wants to go for a walk." Malcolm turned to the rest of them. "I'll take him and be back later." Then he got up and followed the warhound into the woods, making his escape.

Alistair glanced over at Wynne. "None of us told him he was wrong. All I could think of was that Duncan needed to tell him that, but he can't, because he's dead. He won't believe anyone else, I don't think. Maybe he's even worse off than before."

Wynne sighed. "It's a step. There's a lot of work to do yet. Him fully accepting his place as a Grey Warden, a Blight to stop, a throne to recover."

"Does everyone know?" Alistair asked, knowing the surprise was written on his face.

The older mage smiled. "There's rumors all over Ferelden about how Maric's two living illegitimate sons are preparing to forcibly remove Loghain from the throne. Already, some of the Bannorn is uniting under the banner of the bastard princes and proclaiming Loghain's regency as a unlawful grab for power. They're also claiming that it's Loghain's withdrawal from the field at Ostagar that killed Cailan. That Loghain was the traitor, and not the Grey Wardens."

"You heard about that in the Tower?"

"Oh, we find ways to keep ourselves apprised of the situation of the world outside the Tower." She patted his shoulder reassuringly. "People already believe in you and Malcolm. You just have to be ready to do the things that will need to be done. Some of them won't be pleasant, but they will be necessary. You must steel yourself for that."

Alistair didn't ask for specifics. He guessed the unpleasant tasks would be too numerous to count and many of them unknown until they presented themselves. He would approach the Blight and the fight for the throne the way Duncan had faced the threat of the Blight—he would do what must be done, in as humane a way as it could be, but he would do it because it had to be.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

**Malcolm**

Morrigan was still shooting him dirty looks for sending her into the Fade after Connor's demon, even after she'd successfully done so and returned without any undue harm. He could feel those glares, boring into the back of his neck as he and Alistair spoke with Teagan. It took most of his will not to squirm.

"Connor is his old self," Teagan continued. "He does not seem to remember anything, which is a blessing. I suppose we will need to sent him to the Circle of Magi's tower for...training. It's so odd to think of the boy as a mage, of all things. Eamon has much to mourn and rebuild, should he recover. But at least he can be thankful that both his son and wife are safe."

Malcolm still wasn't certain he was thankful that Eamon's wife was alive.

"I owe you my deepest thinks," Isolde said from where she stood next to Teagan. "I nearly... I can scarcely believe Connor is the boy he once was."

No, he wasn't thankful she was alive at all. Not a single word about all the death she'd brought to the village, no apologies for bringing in the mage that ended up poisoning the arl. Nothing that admitted any culpability for a horrific event that she had so much responsibility for. He gritted his teeth, trying to keep his mouth shut.

Teagan quickly spoke up before Isolde could say anything else. "There is still the matter of Jowan. His poisoning of Eamon began this whole mess, yet—"

That was it. He wouldn't hear of only the incompetent mage being blamed. "No, Bann Teagan, that is not what started this whole mess, and you know it. We all know it. What _started_ this mess was Arlessa Isolde contracting a mage to tutor her son so that she could hide her son's abilities from everyone, from his father to the Circle of Magi."

"What?" came First Enchanter Irving's voice from behind him.

Oddly, Malcolm felt Morrigan's glares stop. Apparently she liked it when he riled people up. Good to know. He turned to look at Irving. If he'd remembered the First Enchanter was still there, this situation would have been a wonderful plan. But he'd forgotten, so now he merely looked politically brilliant. He resisted sighing. People would get the wrong idea about his abilities now, but he couldn't stop. This situation had to be dealt with. "You heard me. The arlessa, from what I've heard, is a devout woman who was ashamed of her son's abilities. Not only that, she did not want to let him go to the Circle. So she kept him here at Redcliffe, making him an apostate, and employed a runaway mage _apprentice_ from the Circle to tutor him. Not tutor the boy on how to use or control his abilities, just to hide them. In doing so, she invited the man who poisoned Arl Eamon into her home."

Isolde started to defend herself. "I... I did not mean—"

Irving raised his hand, cutting her off. "Lady Isolde, is this true?"

She cast her eyes down. "Yes."

The First Enchanter let out a long sigh. "I must assume your heart was in the right place in trying to protect your son. Yet in doing so, you nearly allowed your son to become fully possessed by a demon. He nearly became an irreversible abomination. The fact that Connor managed to resist that demon for so long suggests that he has great ability in him and he must be taught to control it." He looked at Bann Teagan. "I understand the boy's father is still ill?"

"Yes, he is," Teagan replied.

"He must be told when he awakens," Irving said. "With the state the Circle is in right now, I do not think the boy should be sent to us yet. Bann Teagan, if it is permissible, I will leave a Senior Enchanter here at Redcliffe to begin Connor's lessons." Though he'd asked permission, Irving's tone told Teagan and the others that a mage must be allowed to stay at Redcliffe until Connor could join the Circle.

Teagan nodded, not even bothering to look at Isolde. "That would be most kind of you, Irving."

Irving shifted his attention back to Isolde, his expression dark. "Arlessa Isolde."

The commanding tone brought Isolde to look up at the others again. Malcolm could still see in her eyes that the woman still wasn't repentant. What would have to happen for the woman to take responsibility for her actions? If she didn't acknowledge them, they couldn't be sure she wouldn't stoop to other equally dangerous things in the future. Her husband was unable to fulfill his duties are arl due to his illness. Therefore, it fell to the arlessa to maintain the arling, to administer to the needs of her people. Like when his father had been set to go to Ostagar back when life made sense, and he was going to be responsible for running the castle while his father, mother, brother were away. Except, for him, Arl Howe had decided he wanted all of Highever and forcibly took over.

Isolde watched Irving steadily, waiting.

"Nevermind," said Irving. "Arl Eamon can decide what to do about you when he recovers. The templars will take Jowan back with us to the Circle for his own discipline. If you will excuse us, we must depart for Kinloch Hold as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Irving," Bann Teagan said.

Irving gave him a short bow, and then strode away. Teagan, ignoring Isolde, turned to Malcolm and the others. "As much as we have accomplished here, our task is not done yet. Whatever the demon did to my brother, it seems to have spared his life, but he remains comatose. We cannot wake him."

"The Urn!" cried Isolde. "The Urn of Sacred Ashes will save Eamon! There's a scholar in Denerim, Brother Genitivi, who has been researching the Urn's location for several years now. The knights that returned said they were unable to find him, but perhaps the Maker will lead you to him. "

"You're talking about a fantasy, Isolde. A fool's errand that will waste time instead of trying to find a cure for Arl Eamon that's based in reality. By going after the Urn, you're asking everyone to pin their hopes on a miracle. And miracles don't exist," Malcolm said as calmly as he could.

The arlessa's eyes became cold as she turned to Malcolm. "Just because the Maker didn't grant your family a miracle doesn't mean He wouldn't grant us one."

Malcolm lunged forward, only to be stopped by Alistair throwing out his arm in front of him. "Killing her won't make it hurt any less," he quietly said to Malcolm before settling a glare on Isolde. "Leave." When he'd addressed the arlessa, his voice had become as hard as the stone under their feet.

Her eyebrows raised in shock. "Excuse me?"

"I told you to leave. What you said was uncalled for and deliberately hurtful. This man has just helped your son recover from demonic possession. This man has recently helped your entire village defend itself from attacks from the undead due to something for which you hold responsibility. And you decide thank him by reminding him of what Arl Howe did to his foster family? Until you can bring your haughty self to apologize for what you said and what you've done, do not show your face to any of us. I mean it. Next time, I won't stop my brother and I don't think anyone else would, either."

Isolde glanced over at Teagan as if asking for help.

He shook his head. "You're in the wrong here, Isolde. You need to leave."

The arlessa spun on her heel and strode off in a huff. Only once the doors had shut behind her did Alistair remove his arm from in front of Malcolm.

"I wasn't going to kill her," Malcolm said, his limbs finally starting to relax.

Alistair grinned. "I wasn't taking any chances. Wouldn't do for an arlessa to be murdered and one of the bastard princes or Grey Wardens to have done it. I think it'd be a hit to our credibility."

Malcolm smiled wryly. "Only if they didn't know her well."

"I'm sorry, Malcolm," Bann Teagan said. "Truly, I am."

"You aren't responsible for her behavior. She is. You've nothing to apologize for," Malcolm replied. He liked Bann Teagan. Wasn't a fan of Teagan's brother's choice in wives, but that couldn't be helped. Arl Eamon wasn't too bad of a man, either. But he had a really hard time separating the man's actions from his wife's, especially since the man was still on his sickbed, and because of it, hadn't put in any appearances. Not that it was his fault.

"As for finding the Urn of Sacred Ashes, Teagan, we'll help you," Alistair said.

"We need to—what?" Malcolm stared at his brother, speechless.

Alistair turned to him, his face somber. "I haven't heard anyone suggest a better idea. Wishing for a miracle or not, this search for the Urn is the best possible cure we've got right now. We can at least go see if we can find this Brother Genitivi in Denerim. Besides, we should go to Denerim anyway to get an idea of what's going on for news there and to see if we can possibly get into the Grey Warden compound. And... well, I owe it to Arl Eamon. He did what he could by me, and even if it wasn't the greatest childhood, he did put a roof over my head."

"I..." Malcolm sighed. "Fine." He looked to Teagan. "Would Redcliffe be able to spare any supplies for us? Alistair's heavy chainmail sustained some melting damage from our labors at the Tower."

Teagan raised an eyebrow. "Melting? Did I hear that right?"

Alistair removed his shield and spun around. "Look there. See the rips? Yeah. Those are from the claws of a giant pride demon. Come to think of it, I should've shown Isolde. I wonder if she has a pride demon. That would explain a lot."

"Nah. She's just Orlesian."

"Hey!" Leliana objected.

"What are you complaining about?" Alistair asked her, replacing his shield. "You keep telling me and everyone else that you're actually Fereldan, even though you don't sound anything like one."

She scowled. "I was born here. My mother was Fereldan. It isn't my fault she took me to Orlais and raised me there."

"Well, you can't have it both ways. Either you laugh when we mock Orlesians because you are Fereldan, or you get all offended when we mock Orlesians because you're Orlesian. Which is it?"

"It was reflexive," the bard replied with a shrug. "I'll try not to do it again."

"And I shall endeavor to tell as many Orlesian jokes as I can now, just to test it." Alistair gave her a cheeky grin.

"We've a blacksmith in the village," Teagan said, steering them back on track. "I'll give you a note and he'll either repair your melted chain or replace it. He's a good smith. You'll be in good hands."

"Thank you," said Malcolm.

Teagan nodded. "Now, if there's nothing else, we've all got many things to do and little time to do it in thanks to the Blight breathing down our necks. I must go to the hall and set people to rebuilding. You are welcome to stay the night to rest in actual beds if you wish. Take whatever you need from the castle stores when you leave in the morning. I wish you luck, and may the Maker go with you."

They returned the nod and Teagan left the group alone in Arl Eamon's study. Malcolm found the arl's chair and sat down in it. Alistair stood beside the fireplace with Leliana nearby, while Morrigan and Wynne eyed each other warily from opposite sides of the room. "Well, that speech was rather regal of you, Alistair," Malcolm said after Teagan was out of earshot.

"It was, wasn't it? I thought I should start practicing if you're so determined to see this throwing Loghain off the throne thing through."

"Eamon will be much more determined than I am whe—" he stopped speaking when a servant appeared at the door. "Yes?"

"The cook wanted to know if she should be sending food up, and at some point, I'm to show you where your rooms are," the young elf said.

"Food? Yes, absolutely and please," Alistair quickly replied. "I'm starving."

Within minutes, hot, simple food had been delivered by a couple of the surviving servants who were given many thanks from the entire party. No matter how good a cook any of them were, none of them could come close to hot food eaten in a civilized manner instead of by a campfire. Soon enough, the activities of the past week caught up with all of them, and tiredness sent them to bed one by one. Malcolm, stuck in thought about the last time he'd been in the arl's study, stayed behind longer than the others. His eyes were pointing in the direction of the fire that'd been lit in the fireplace, but he didn't really see it. This was the room where he'd found out who his natural parents were. He remembered how Eamon's explanation had been a bit dodgy, and how he'd assumed it was all some big joke. Yes, the joke was certainly on him now.

"Are you falling asleep?"

"What?" Malcolm shook his head to bring himself back to the real world. Alistair hadn't left the room and sat in the same chair Duncan had sat in when they had stopped here on the way to Ostagar.

"I thought maybe you were falling asleep with your eyes open. Kind of creepy, that."

"Mmm. Yes, it would be. Good thing I wasn't. Though, if I could figure out how to do that, I'd have to worry about being killed in my sleep a lot less." He frowned. "I thought you were going to bed?"

Alistair nodded. "I was and I will soon. I just wanted to talk to you about what happened."

"_Which_ what happened? As I recall, there was a lot. Some of it went rather well, other parts, not so much. That bit where you got your chainmail melted? That was some of the not so much, in case you were wondering." Even as he joked, Malcolm knew his brother wanted to talk seriously. After his little breakdown at the camp the other night, they hadn't discussed anything that'd been revealed. And since he'd almost tried to harm the Arlessa of Redcliffe, he supposed it needed to be talked about. But he would maintain until his dying day that she had started it.

"Well, for one, I did want to thank you. You went out of your way to save the arl's family even thought it would've been easier not to." He shrugged. "There's been so much death and destruction, it... well, it makes me feel good that at least we were able to save something, no matter how small. If we can't do these things for each other as human beings, then really, what's the point in trying to stop the Blight? We have to be worthy of it, I think. As a whole, anyway. There's some individual examples who make me almost prefer the darkspawn over them if given a choice."

Malcolm smiled. "It's probably the same list I've got. It isn't very long."

"Good. It'll be easier to take care of, then." Alistair became serious again. "And I wanted to apologize for pretty much taking over the leading from you. I'm the one who practically made you do it in the first place because I figured I'd get us all lost in the forest without any pants, and then suddenly I find myself making decisions without even asking you. Like in the Tower a few days ago, and then earlier today with Bann Teagan."

Malcolm had taken notice of the change. He'd been happy about it, as much as he could be, at the Tower. After all, he hadn't wanted to do much except be angry, and having to lead people at the same time made being constantly angry a lot more difficult. When Alistair had stopped him from approaching the arlessa, and then made the unilateral decision that they'd go search for the Urn, that had surprised him. Alistair had already made the choice that they would, and when he'd made the case for it to Malcolm, it was to get him to agree with him philosophically, because, like it or not, Alistair was going to make him go. "Nothing to apologize for. You should be the leader, anyway, which is what I've been telling you for ages. You're the senior Grey Warden, not me. You're also the elder brother. I know you were mostly raised in the Chantry, but I was raised as the younger son of a teyrn. Trust me, it's the elder brother who does all the leading and gets stuck with all the boring and hard decisions if the teyrn isn't around. And from what I saw of the Wardens, as little as it was, it did seem rather seniority based, which makes sense as it's a military organization."

Alistair shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes, well. I don't particularly want to lead, and I didn't mean to jump in, I just sort of did."

"It's a good sign. I think it means you're finally getting past some of that stuff they beat into you as a kid, when they kept telling you that you'd never be a leader of men and you'd never have a chance at the throne and all that stuff."

The other man's face paled. "You had to remind me of the throne, didn't you?"

"Just think of our adventures as practice for when you're stuck being king after we defeat the Blight."

Alistair heaved a weary sigh. "I hate you. Just so you know, I'm keeping you around for all that. You get to be my advisor or chancellor or however all that works. Hey! Technically, since you're my younger brother, _you're_ stuck being my heir, just in case. Take that."

"Now I hate you." But at the same time, he knew Alistair would need his help and he wouldn't just abandon him. "But I hate Teyrn Loghain much, much more. And if I have to stick around court and help you in order to get that blasted man off the throne, then I will. Anyway, take as much of the lead as you want. I really don't care. Besides, if I'm being withdrawn and not doing my job, it's yours to take over anyway. And then kick some sense into me."

"Yes. As I recall, you still have an impending beatdown from me. I guess that'll have to happen once this is all over."

Malcolm's gaze wandered back over to the fireplace. When it was all over. They still had so much to do that it didn't seem their work would ever end. They had Orzammar to visit, they still had to find the Dalish, and then they had this side trip to Denerim to see about this Urn of Sacred Ashes. He did hope they found a way to cure Arl Eamon as they'd need his help with Loghain and gathering up the Bannorn for fighting the darkspawn. One thing was for certain—they had to find a way to defeat Loghain without spilling any Ferelden blood if it could be helped. The darkspawn were doing enough of that on their own.

Months ago, when he'd first been in this room, freezing from being outside and thinking the arl was messing with his head, he never would've thought himself to be in this position. He figured he would've escaped somehow at some point, that he wouldn't be a Grey Warden. Or if he hadn't managed to escape, that he wouldn't be in charge or sharing the leadership. Instead, he was supposed to be following Duncan, letting the older man who knew what to do in all of this guide them into defeating the darkspawn and the Blight. He sighed, and then looked back at Alistair. "The last time I was in this room, the chair you're sitting in is the one Duncan sat in."

"Was it this room you tried to bolt from?"

Malcolm laughed. "No. Isolde kicked me out when I was in the kitchens. When I tried to run, we were over on the other side of Lake Calenhad, just past the crossroads with the West Road and the Imperial Highway. Maker, Duncan could run _fast_. I thought I would've been able to outpace him and I was wrong. Sure, he caught me because I ran out of ground what with the abrupt appearance of a cliff and the cold lake below it, but he would've caught me soon after even if the cliff hadn't appeared."

Alistair looked puzzled. "So what did he do when he caught you? I've always wondered. I mean, I'd heard of some of the involuntary recruits trying to run before, but usually there were several Wardens traveling together. One or more of them would have to stand guard, maybe bind the recruit's hands or something. I don't know."

"He told me I wouldn't survive the fall if I jumped, for one." Malcolm smiled. "He really was determined to keep me alive. He caught me so off guard with what he said that I was speechless. We stared at each other for a couple minutes until he just heaved this heavy sigh and told me to come back to camp and get some sleep."

"That's it? Really? He didn't even scold you?" Alistair's eyebrows had raised in disbelief.

"He did make me promise not to plan on running again, but that was pretty much it. Oh, and he did tell me that if I tried again, he would carry me kicking and screaming to Ostagar, and that I really shouldn't test him on that."

Alistair let out a laugh. "I can see him doing that. He'd be a person to do it, if he had a mind to. He could be very... determined."

"You know, he told me later, after Isolde had kicked me out of the castle and I hadn't run away, that had he been in my place, he would've taken the opportunity to escape."

That statement made Alistair sit up straight. "What? Duncan would have run?"

"That's what I said! He explained that he didn't mean he'd have done it then, but that in the first year after he'd become a Grey Warden that he'd lost count of how many times he'd tried to run away."

Alistair frowned. "But why would he do that?"

"He was recruited involuntarily. Conscripted like I was, I suppose. He didn't go into detail and I didn't ask. But I wish I knew the whole story, it must be a good one."

"I didn't know he was a conscript," Alistair said. "I truly had no idea."

"Well, however he became a Grey Warden, he ended up being a good one." He paused, thinking on what he had missed, on how he hadn't really had a chance to be a part of the organization when it had more than two members in all of Ferelden. "What was it like to be a Grey Warden, with all the others?"

Alistair relaxed in his armchair and his eyes got fuzzy as he reminisced. "That's right, you never met them all, did you? They were quite a group. Actually, they felt like an extended family since we were kin, of a sort. All of us had gone through the Joining, so we knew what we could never tell anyone outside the Order. We also laughed more than you'd think. There was this one Warden who came all the way from the Anderfels. What was his name? Gregor? Grigor? Anyway, he was a burly man with the biggest, fuzziest beard you've ever seen. And the man could drink! He drank all the time but never got drunk. Finally, we all made a pool just to see how many pints it would take to put him under the table."

"And?"

"We never did find out. He said he'd drink a pint for every half-pint that the rest of us drank. He was still going by the time the rest of us were passed out. I'm told that Duncan walked in later and saw us all passed out from one end of the hall to the other and Gregor still drinking. Duncan laughed until he nearly started to cry, and then joined Gregor for a pint." The memory alone made Alistair laugh out loud.

Malcolm joined in, even as he wished he could've had some of the same experiences with the Grey Wardens.

Then Alistair's laughing faded and his golden brown eyes turned somber. "You know, I remember hearing that Duncan was from Highever. Maybe that's how he knew the teyrn. Maybe that's why he wanted your father's blessing for you to be a Grey Warden."

Malcolm's eyebrow nearly shot to his hairline. "Really? Duncan looked Rivaini, if anything. Though I suppose once we get in contact with the other Grey Wardens—which will eventually happen, I'm sure—they'll know for certain. " Sooner would be better. Guidance from people who knew what they were doing would be nice. More than nice. Fantastic, even.

Alistair nodded, looking so tired that he might just nod off right there.

"I think we should get some rest," said Malcolm. He bade Alistair a good night and went to find his room. Once inside, he fished around in his pack for a clean set of clothes and came out with a leather-bound book instead. Blast. He'd forgotten about the grimoire, and now that he knew he had it, he didn't particularly want it anywhere near him. One never knew, it could bite him in his sleep or something. After a wistful look at the bed, he picked up the book, gathered up his courage, and went to Morrigan's door, hoping she was still awake.

He'd barely started to knock when the door opened and Morrigan stood there, studying him expectantly. "Yes?"

He held the book out in front of him almost like a shield. "I found this in the Tower. I think it's—"

Morrigan reached out, grabbed his arm, and hauled him bodily into the room before shutting the door behind him. Once they were inside, she snatched the tome from his hands. "You found Flemeth's grimoire? When I spoke to you of it, I did not truly hope... I don't know what to say."

Malcolm had never seen Morrigan react like this to anything, and it felt good to see it. He wished he could see her like this more often. More human. More happy. "Thank you is usually the thing people say in these situations." Then he gave her an impertinent smile. "Sometimes a guy even gets a kiss from a beautiful woman." Once he'd said it out loud, he wanted to take it back. However beautiful this woman was, and however she made him feel for her in matters beyond her beauty, it remained that she could be very dangerous. And somehow, maybe cause he was tired or he apparently was feeling flippant towards danger, he'd let the comment slip. "I mean—"

Her hand reached out and she placed her fingers on his lips. A smile spread warmly across her face, one that touched her eyes. A true smile. Something he had come to recognize as extremely rare when it came to Morrigan. "I think I could arrange for more than that," she said.

He realized his best course of action, the safest course of action, would be to leave her room immediately. To leave her room as fast as his feet could carry him, away from this dangerous witch. Then he made the mistake, his second mistake in the past few minutes, of looking into her eyes. In them, he saw the true depth of this woman, how she was as vulnerable as he, and no more dangerous than he was, and that the connection he'd felt since she'd first healed the cut on his cheek was a real one.

And without another thought of fleeing, he followed her to her bed.


	18. Chapter 18

**18**

**Alistair**

"This was a horrible idea. Who came up with it?" Alistair whispered.

"You did," Malcolm shot back, shifting uncomfortably in cheap, ill-fitting leather armor. "Neither of us are exactly subtle or stealthy. But you insisted that we try to break in. You insisted that our bard friend could use her amazing skills at subterfuge and stealth and all things sneaky to get us in and out of the compound. Now here we are, in the middle of thenight, plastered against a wall and hoping the guards nearby don't hear us arguing. And I feel naked in this armor. How does it really protect anyone?"

"I'm told it allows you to move faster. Oh, and it's breathable, I'll give it that. Nice to let your skin breathe once in awhile."

"If you two don't shut up, I am going to make you wear dresses the next time you want me to sneak you in anywhere," hissed Leliana as she peeked around a corner.

Alistair said, "It has to be a pretty dress," at the same time Malcolm said, "There won't be a next time."

Then Malcolm looked disbelievingly at his brother. "A pretty dress? Really?"

"Well, I certainly won't wear an ugly one. Oh, and it has to compliment my eyes, too."

"I think you've been hanging around with Leliana too much."

Alistair raised a curious eyebrow. "Have I? Perhaps we should talk about you and that witch?"

"Maybe you need to shut up."

Leliana spun around from her position and clapped a hand over each of their mouths. "I told you that already! And so help me Maker, if either one of you says another word before I give the okay, I'll... I'll do something not nice."

As Alistair looked into Leliana's captivating blue eyes, he wanted to tell her she could do not nice things to him all she wanted. But then he caught the almost murderous intent behind them and decided he'd save that comment for later.

Satisfied that the brothers would keep quiet, the bard dropped her hands from their mouths and went back to her position at the wall's corner. "The guard has gone," she told them. "We move now." She took off at a swift, silent run, leaving the other two to follow in an equally swift but not-so-silent manner. Somehow, they managed not to be heard and piled outside the side entrance to the abandoned Grey Warden compound. Leliana retrieved the two wires of her lockpick from, actually Alistair wasn't sure where, and began the process of picking the lock.

He wasn't sure if he quite wanted her to be able to pick the lock. She was just one bard, she shouldn't be easily able to break into the compound. The Grey Wardens should have better security than that. At the same time, he didn't exactly want the guards to come back around the corner on their patrol and catch them. Then they'd have to try to fight their way out against impossible odds or get captured, tortured, and then killed by the current false king. Given the choices, Alistair decided he'd rather the Grey Wardens have a poor locking mechanism on their side door. Or maybe their presence would allow them entrance when picking the lock because of the taint and it'd signal it safe somehow. Whatever worked.

The lock popped.

Leliana swung the door inward and the three of them crept inside. Behind them, the bard shut the door quietly and re-locked it. Complete darkness shrouded the main hall. The lack of windows allowed no light to pass in from the outside. This helped them, because it allowed them to light torches as they searched and theoretically go unnoticed. The walls were made of stone, similar in style to most of Denerim's older architecture. One wall had a large mural depicting a battle that had supposedly taken place during the First Blight. Or the second, Alistair couldn't quite remember. But it tended to be the favorite of the new recruits and the younger Wardens because in the mural, Grey Wardens were riding their famed griffons. Quite epic, really. Another wall had a portrait of what Alistair assumed was the current First Warden, though he'd never met him and probably never would. He looked very dour. Maybe he'd eaten a lemon right before the portrait was painted. That could be it.

"What are we looking for?" Malcolm asked, his eyes on the huge, wooden table where all fifty Wardens had been able to eat their meals at the same time. Except rarely had all fifty of them been at the compound at the same time. Some would be out finding possible recruits to bring to Duncan's attention, while others would be out in scouting parties searching for any signs of the darkspawn. The most that'd been there at one time had been during that drinking contest with Gregor and they'd only numbered at forty. Hmm. Maybe if all fifty of them had been there they could've gotten Gregor under the table. Thanks to wonderful Loghain, they'd never know.

"Um, I'm not sure," Alistair replied. "I think there might be a safe somewhere, it could have important stuff in it, whatever that important stuff might be. There's probably weapons around, too, we had a lot and we couldn't transport them all. Oh, maybe there's an instruction guide in case everyone is wiped out leaving two new Grey Wardens unluckily in charge of everything! Then again, I doubt that."

Leliana appeared at his side. "Where is this safe? I can go start cracking it now."

Alistair pointed to the hallway. "First room on the left. Inside Duncan's study." Though, Duncan's second had spent more time in that office than Duncan himself. There'd been too much recruiting to do for him to stay in Denerim for extended periods of time. Alistair know should've split up and gone looking in other rooms while Leliana went for the safe, but curiosity overtook him and he went with her anyway. The bard started in on the safe while Alistair's eyes swept the room. There was a heavy silverite shield with single rampant griffon heraldry in the corner, one Duncan had occasionally used in the practice yard when helping instruct new recruits. But when it came to battles, Duncan had always gone back to his sword and dagger. He'd asked Duncan about it once, because the Warden Commander had been good at shield tactics. Duncan had told him he'd grown up using two daggers, and when in battle, he preferred two sharp, pointed weapons over one pointed weapon and the bludgeoning use of a shield. He had taken to using a longsword in place of one dagger, mostly because it gave him greater reach.

Alistair had been surprised that Duncan hadn't taken to using two longswords to keep enemies even further away and had voiced that surprise and asked if he lacked the dexterity. Duncan had laughed then answered, "It isn't that I lack the skill, Alistair. But my fighting style often gets me into close quarters. If I have two longswords and I'm in close, I can't maneuver the sword quickly enough for the advantage. But if I have a shorter weapon, such as a dagger, I can quickly jab my opponent in several vulnerable spots while he tries to get me outside, where he could stab me with his sword. Two-weapon fighting can be fun, you know. You should give it a try."

Duncan had tried to teach him in the weeks that followed, but both of them gave up eventually. While Alistair excelled with this sword and shield, he was hopeless if they put something pointy in his other hand. Each lesson he'd managed to cut himself at least once. One time, he'd stabbed himself in the thigh. That ended up being the last lesson as they hadn't been sure where Alistair would manage to stab himself next.

He moved to the shield and hefted it. A heavy shield, indeed, but finely balanced. Much finer than the templar initiate shield he still carried. And this shield had been Duncan's, however little it might've been used. Something to remember him by—especially when he smashed in darkspawn faces with it. Decision made, he dropped his templar shield where Duncan's shield had been and placed the new shield on his back.

"It suits you," Leliana said. "And from what you and Malcolm have said about Duncan, I think he would've wanted you to have it."

Alistair gave her a warm smile, and then noticed that the safe's door was open. "Cracked it already, have you? Grey Warden security apparently left much to be desired."

"Or I could be a highly skilled bard. You never know."

With a wary look, he stepped past her and to the safe. Inside, he found papers in weatherproof oilskins, others in envelopes, and a few bags of sovereigns. For some reason, he could also sense the presence of the darkspawn taint, but there weren't any darkspawn about. Frowning, he took everything out, shoving the sovereigns inside his pack. The papers he tossed on the desk. In the meantime, Leliana had taken one last look inside the safe. "There's a false back to this," she said.

"Can you remove it?"

"Of course." And she did so easily. Awfully handy to have a woman like that around. She peered inside the small compartment that had been hidden and her eyes went wide. "What... what is that?"

Alistair looked inside and was nearly assaulted by the taint. It took him a moment to recover himself and he stared at the object—a small vial of black blood. Ichor. What was that doing in here? Even for darkspawn blood, it possessed a ridiculous amount of taint for it to affect him this strongly. It must be important, but at the same time, he didn't particularly want to carry it around in his pack, or anyone else's. That much of the taint around others who didn't carry the immunity they did would be too dangerous, not without the proper protection to keep it safe. "Can you replace that false back and lock the safe again to look like it wasn't tampered with?"

"Are you going to tell me what that is?"

He sighed. "It's darkspawn blood, and that's all I'll tell you, so don't ask any more questions about it."

"Fair enough." She went to putting the safe back like she'd found it and Alistair turned toward the papers they'd discovered.

Before sitting to review the papers, he searched the drawers. He found nothing of consequence, bits of paper with notes scrawled on them about supplies and the like. Back it was to the papers from the safe. One of the oilskins had the double griffon crest of the Warden Commander stamped into it. Naturally, Alistair opened that one first. He found a fairly good-sized sheaf of papers and all of them were unreadable. "Code," he said out loud. "Blast it."

"I take it you don't know this code?" Leliana asked, placing her hands on his shoulders.

He nearly jumped out of his skin but managed to sound normal. "No. All the senior Grey Wardens did, but I'd only been one for half a year. Malcolm had just Joined, so neither of us were privy to the cipher. This is Duncan's handwriting, I'm sure of that at least. Most of it, anyway." He put the papers back and opened another one of the oilskins, this one a symbol he wasn't quite sure of. He paused and studied it more closely. The imprint on the oiled leather had nearly been worn away, but he was certain it was the double rampant mabari over a quartered shield, the official heraldry for the Kingdom of Ferelden. He pulled out those papers and found... more cipher. Getting annoyed, Alistair shoved the papers back and grabbed another packet, this one with heraldry he didn't recognize.

"What do you have there?" Malcolm asked.

Alistair looked up to find his brother leaning casually in the doorway. "A lot of papers which could hold a lot of useful information that's all in cipher that I haven't a clue about understanding. So, a fat lot of good it does us."

Malcolm extended one of his hands. "May I see?"

"Knock yourself out." Alistair handed him the most recent oilskin he'd picked up.

"That's the House Cousland seal," Malcolm said, frowning as he studied it. "What other seals were mixed in?"

Alistair shuffled through. "Commander of the Grey, Arling of Redcliffe, Kingdom of Ferelden, you know, the usual. You'd think there would be something templar related. That'd make me feel useful. Maybe even hopeful."

Malcolm took one of the papers out of the packet Alistair had given him. "Well, I can read all of the Cousland ones, so there's that." He sighed. "Maybe there's a second safe around here, one with the decoding scheme for the cipher for the Wardens. What Grey Wardens know the cipher?"

"In Ferelden? The ones who are dead."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Yes, right. I suppose resurrection is out of the question, then. All right. We'll just have to search, I suppose. Either a second safe or maybe we'll get lucky and someone left a code sheet behind in their room somewhere when everyone left for Ostagar."

"Fine, let's just do another search." In case they were discovered before they could get back to the office, Alistair put all of the papers from the desk into his pack, while Malcolm placed the Cousland ones in his own. That taken care of, they started a room by room search. Alistair found a few flasks of dwarven ale, various bits of rubbish, old blankets, and broken weapons. Basically, nothing of any use. Grey Wardens didn't tend to be much on belongings as they could be transferred or even die at any time. Mostly, they only owned whatever they could carry on their backs or on a horse.

After he'd gone through all of his assigned rooms, Alistair went up to the alcove to Malcolm. "You find anything?"

His brother held up a small statuette. "Miniature golem doll."

"That's mine,"Alistair said, in as serious a tone of voice as he could muster. "Give it here."

Malcolm burst into laughter and moved the statuette further away from Alistair. "No way."

"You mean you aren't giving it back or you don't believe it's mine?"

"I believe it's yours, but I'm not sure if I'm giving it back just yet. It could be something that'd be good to hold from you in case I needed to trade you for something. Or blackmail you. One never knows."

"Oh, come on. You aren't seriously going to play keep away, are you? What are we, ten?"

"You're the one telling me that I have you give your back your _doll_."

"For the love of the Maker," Leliana said, joining them in the alcove, "stop arguing like little boys. Honestly, sometimes it feels like it was better when you two were trying to kill each other." Then she snatched the statuette out of Malcolm's hands and gave it to Alistair. "Problem solved. And if the two of you even care anymore, I found a second safe with the code you were looking for. Well, the key for your Grey Warden cipher, anyway." She held up another oilskin.

Malcolm took it from her hand and told Alistair, "You get the doll, so I get the cipher."

Alistair shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. That means you get to do all the paperwork it'll take to decode that stuff while I get to play with a miniature golem doll. I think I got the better deal." With that, he went back down the stairs, his brother glaring at him.

"We should make our escape as soon as we can," Leliana said as she walked down the stairs after Malcolm. "We've been here longer than I intended."

The three of them did one final sweep for anything of use in the building, and then followed Leliana out of the compound and off the palace grounds. Once they were back at the camp, Malcolm and Alistair practically raced to their tents to remove the uncomfortable armor they each wore. When Alistair came back out and sat down by the fire, he discovered Leliana looking at him with amusement. "What?" he asked.

"Were the leathers really that uncomfortable?"

"They pinched in places that should never be pinched. I think that's uncomfortable enough," he replied with a scowl.

"Mine did, too," Malcolm agreed as he sat down on a log across from them. They were soon joined by Morrigan and Wynne, who had surprisingly still not killed each other in some sort of mage duel. Alistair supposed that if they hadn't done so now, they probably never would. Leaving the two of them alone together in the camp would've been the best chance they had at such a duel and they hadn't taken it.

"Did you find anything?" Wynne asked, finding another log and taking a seat.

Alistair shrugged. "I found Duncan's shield. Other than that, not much. We did find a lot of official-looking papers in a safe, but every single one of them we've looked at so far is in some kind of cipher. We found a cipher key in another safe, but it will take time for us to figure it out."

"For me to figure it out, you mean," Malcolm said, not looking up from the papers now on his lap. "Since you get to play with a golem doll, instead."

Morrigan opened her mouth as if to ask a question, and then looked from Malcolm to Alistair and back again. "On second thought, I don't even want to know." She sat down rather close to Malcolm and Alistair took note of their proximity. He _knew_ he'd seen his brother go to Morrigan's room the other night at Redcliffe Castle. Blast him. Didn't he know the woman was dangerous? And here they weren't even being very discreet about it, either.

Malcolm looked up at the woman beside him. "So what did you and Wynne do today? I noticed you didn't kill each other."

"Why would we do such a thing?" Morrigan asked, her eyebrows raising in question. "I am no maleficar. I am no blood mage. And I am not an abomination, either. Wynne had the misfortune of being raised in the Tower, but 'twas no fault of her own. She adds more strength to our little party, I think. Her presence also raises our collective intelligence quite a bit, which is hard to do, considering how far Alistair brings it down."

Alistair glared at her. "I'm right here you know."

"Yes, I know. If you weren't within earshot, I wouldn't have said it."

He sighed, but said nothing. Morrigan always went on and on about how stupid he was. He knew he wasn't stupid, he'd taken and had done well in plenty of lessons in the Chantry. They didn't make stupid templars. But he was sure that if managed to prove to Morrigan that he wasn't stupid that she would just find another fault of his to tease him about. Best just to let her continue thinking he was stupid. He could be quite good at appearing so, and it tended to make a lot of people underestimate him. "What did you do two do today in the city, Wynne?"

"We put our ears to the ground, as it were," the old mage replied, "and we have some news. Loghain claims to have captured an Orlesian Grey Warden last week and intends to execute him the day after tomorrow in the courtyard in front of Fort Drakon. He wants to make a statement to all of Ferelden about the Grey Wardens: that their spying will not be tolerated."

"He..." Alistair couldn't believe it. Going so far as to execute a Grey Warden for being a Grey Warden? Or execute him because he was Orlesian? Perhaps Loghain didn't see a difference between Grey Wardens or Orlesians. He wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, actually. "Do you have any more information?"

"Other than the execution is at midday, no, we haven't," Morrigan replied.

Malcolm frowned at the fire. "We'll have to save him."

"If we get captured, we'll be up on the block with him," Alistair pointed out.

"I know. But we can't just leave him. He did nothing wrong except show up in Ferelden when there was a Blight and probably has the misfortune of an Orlesian accent. And to Loghain, an Orlesian accent means you're a spy. Simple as that." Malcolm slid a glance in Leliana's direction.

"I am not a spy!" she said indignantly. "I am a bard."

Malcolm grinned. "Bard is just spy spelled a different way. But you aren't a spy for Loghain, that's for sure. He'd never use an Orlesian, even if they make good spies. I mean bards," he quickly corrected at Leliana's threatening look.

"How do you propose we accomplish this rescue?" Morrigan asked. "I don't relish the idea of anyone's head ending up separated from their body. 'Tis most inconvenient."

"Have any of you seen the yard at Fort Drakon?" Malcolm asked, putting the papers he'd had out back into their oilskin. "Are there any—"

He was cut off when a shadow burst forth from the woods and grabbed him from behind. Within that instant, a dagger's blade pressed at Malcolm's throat, ready to slice if he moved in any way.

Everyone was on their feet immediately, Morrigan and Wynne with their staffs out, Leliana having produced daggers of her own, Gunnar growling low in his throat, and Alistair holding his longsword in front of him, ready to attack.

"Come no further," said the man behind Malcolm.

"If you harm him," Morrigan said, her voice alone deadly, "I will hurt you in ways you never knew existed."

Surprisingly, the man holding Malcolm laughed. "Oh, I doubt you could find ways to pain me that I have yet to experience," the man said in what Alistair recognized as an Antivan accent. "I am, shall we say, very experienced."

The anger and fear that had filled Malcolm's blue eyes just moments before disappeared, replaced by incredulousness. "Zevran? Is that you?"

"Ha! You still remember me, my young friend!" The dagger dropped away from Malcolm's neck. "Though, your security needs a bit of work. Had I been truly intending to kill you, you would already be dead."

"You would have been dead soon after," Malcolm said. "I don't think my friends would take too kindly to my death."

"So I gathered," Zevran replied, stepping into the firelight as he sheathed his dagger.

The others stared in astonishment, entirely speechless.

Zevran made himself comfortable, sitting down on one of the logs by the fire, his black leathers creaking as he did so. "Loghain had made a deal with the Antivan Crows for you to be assassinated, my friend," he said, looking at Malcolm, who had calmly retaken his seat. "Naturally, I took the contract."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" Alistair asked the elf, finally finding his voice again.

Malcolm seemed to realize he'd yet to explain what was going on. "I apologize. Let me introduce you. This is Zevran. He was a good friend of my sister-in-law's, though she never did say how she met him. Anyway, I've known him for years. He can be a bit overdramatic, but that's just who he is. He's no danger to us."

Alistair was grudgingly willing to accept Malcolm's opinion of the assassin, given that it was Malcolm's throat the blade had been pressed against. Morrigan, however, didn't look satisfied with the explanation and kept a frosty glare on Zevran even as she moved to stand almost protectively beside Malcolm. If he noticed the glare, the elf didn't indicate it.

"And Zevran, I assume, since you took the contract, that you know who we all are," said Malcolm.

"Mmm. Yes. Except for this other mage," Zevran said, nodding toward Wynne. "She is new."

"You may call me Wynne," the mage said, slowly taking her seat. Her staff, however, stayed close by.

"Wynne, yes. She was the only one I did not recognize. Descriptions of the rest of you were given to me and the Crows by way of Loghain's right hand man, Rendon Howe."

Malcolm tensed. "And you didn't kill him?"

"Not yet, my friend. His time will come. Admittedly, I could hardly stand his presence given what he had done to my near-sister and her family, but there were larger things at stake than that rat's life. Namely, making sure it was I who had your contract so you would not end up dead. The information described you, your hound, and your three companions. Leliana, the red-headed Orlesian bard, Morrigan, a so-called Witch of the Wilds—"

The knuckles on Morrigan's hand turned white as her grip tightened on her staff. "I will show you what a so-called—"

Malcolm reached out and grabbed Morrigan's wrist before she could strike. "Please don't kill him."

"Then inform him that he is not to insult me. Or threaten to harm you. Or anyone else within this camp, unless it is himself," she replied, her glare unrelenting.

"Zevran," Malcolm said in a tired tone that reminded Alistair of Duncan when he got annoyed with him, "please don't antagonize Morrigan. It tends not to be good for your health."

Zevran bowed toward Morrigan. "I humbly offer my apology."

Her eyes narrowed. "I will accept it. For now. Just know that I am watching you." She didn't move from her spot next to Malcolm, either, as if to prove her point.

"Understood," said the elf. "As I was saying, they had accurate descriptions for each of you. Morrigan and her raven black hair, her particular style of dress, and the unusual yet alluring color of her eyes." He turned to Morrigan, eyebrows raised. "How was that, my dear witch?"

She gave him a slight nod. "Better."

He grinned. "Good to know I haven't lost my touch." Then he looked seriously between Malcolm and Alistair. "And the descriptions for the two of you noted that you are not only Grey Wardens, but King Maric's bastard sons as well. As I traveled to find you, I paid attention to many of the rumors flying about in every town I went through. Loghain's position is weakening. It is still too strong to knock over with a mere kick, but his hold is not as strong as it once was. Your Bannorn, I think that is the term, are beginning to rebel against his levies for both gold and men for his armies. And they rebel under the name of the bastard princes. So you have become an even greater threat to Loghain and that is why he contacted the Antivan Crows."

Malcolm glanced over at Alistair. "I guess we're doing something right."

"Yes. It's interesting how we can measure the rightness of our actions by how closely it comes to ending up in our deaths. Lovely, that," Alistair replied, and then he turned to Zevran. "What do you suggest we do now?"

Zevran shrugged. "Nothing that you haven't already been doing. The fact that he's sent assassins after you, and the most expensive assassins, no less, is an indication that you are doing well. Also, I did happen to overhear your discussion about rescuing a Grey Warden from being executed tomorrow."

"Partial discussion. You decided to interrupt with bit of theatre," said Malcolm. "Why do you mention it? You have an idea?"

The elf grinned. "My friend, I always have ideas. But first I must ask, may I stay and fight with you? I will pledge my service if I must. But I am done with the Crows and they with me since I did not fulfill my contract in killing you. If they ever see me again, my life is forfeit. Besides, if you pull this off and Alistair becomes king, a monarch always needs an assassin handy."

"Now there's a terrific thought," muttered Alistair.

"You can stay," Malcolm said, ignoring his brother. "But you must promise not to antagonize Morrigan. She will set you on fire, and that would only be the beginning."

Zevran clapped his fist to his chest. "You have my word." Then he turned to the entire group gathered in the center of the camp. "As for what we do to save this other Grey Warden, we must case the area tomorrow in order to plan properly. And by 'we,' I mean myself and our beautiful Orlesian bard, as we can move about undetected, Leliana in plain sight and myself in the shadows. The rest of you—"

"I could be of help as well," Morrigan said, interrupting him. "Being a shapeshifter, I could easily change into a bird or a number of other creatures and gather information that way. Just tell me what I must do and I will do it."

"The information I was given did not tell me you were a shapeshifter," Zevran said, surprise in his brown eyes. "Interesting. You are a most talented lady, if I must say. That gives us three for tomorrow. I will have to ask the rest of you to stay here for the day, lest we let anyone know that you are in the city."

"Are you certain people don't already know?" Alistair asked. "We were at the market this morning, looking for a Brother Genitivi. We found a man who claimed to be his assistant, but when we questioned him, he gave up on his ruse and attacked us."

"So we killed him," Malcolm added. "We found the real assistant's body in a back room of the house, long dead."

"If you were noticed, I have not heard of it yet. You must give me the location of this house so I can properly dispose of both bodies." He frowned. "How messy was it?"

"He might be missing his head," Alistair said. "I'd look near the fireplace. Might've rolled there."

Zevran heaved a sigh. "Malcolm, why could you not be more amenable to learning some finesse? Some stealth? Some subtlety?"

"It wouldn't take, and you're the one who told me that. Something about me plodding around, a tall, musclebound warrior-type who would never learn to move both quickly and silently together," Malcolm said.

"This is true. I did tell you that, did I not?"

"You did. You also told me that if I tried to use finesse in order to wield a blade and a dagger instead of a blade and a shield, that I would cut off my own head."

"Ha! So I did! I am glad to see that you listened to my advice and therefore have kept your head attached to your neck. It is, after all, such a pretty head." He glanced over at Alistair. "You Theirin princes do tend to run on the handsome side."

Alistair gaped.

Malcolm laughed heartily. "I wish you had visited my home more often. You made Fergus blush in shades of red I had never seen before."

"It is one of my many talents. At any rate, where is this house where these messily murdered bodies await?"

"Across from the Gnawed Noble Tavern. A few doors from the Wonders of Thedas, actually." Malcolm sighed in anticipation of impending boredom. "So you really want us to stay here in camp tomorrow? We can't do anything in the city to help?"

"Not going into the city is what your help will be. Tomorrow, I, the fetching bard, and the lovely witch will reconnoiter the courtyard of this Fort Drakon to see what havoc we will have to wreak the next day. The havoc, my friend, you may participate in all you want, provided you follow my instructions. Now, you and your friends must get some rest, while I will take first watch and go over the defenses for your little camp. And by defenses, I mean the ones you completely lack, which I will be fixing. For shame, my friend! Did I teach you nothing?"

"If I recall, Fergus wouldn't let you teach me anything," Malcolm replied with a grin. "You go and do whatever you need to do."

"Wait," said Alistair. "Are we not to enter the city at all again, ever?"

Zevran frowned. "Why? Do you have other business there?"

Alistair tried not to squirm. He hadn't exactly wanted to bring this up in front of the others, but it couldn't be helped. "Well, I had thought to call on my sister."

Malcolm looked up sharply. "Sister?"

"Yes. I, um, well. See, when I was in Denerim with the Grey Wardens, I got the chance to look around some records in the city's Chantry. I found my mother's name among them and found out that she'd had a daughter some years before me. Her name is Goldanna, and she's my sister."

Malcolm opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then closed it, his eyes troubled.

"I do not think it would be wise for you to go," Zevran said.

This time, Alistair frowned. He understood that they didn't want him showing his face openly in the city, but he could wear a hooded cloak. Maybe he could even wear some everyday, not-at-war normal-person clothing. "But she's my sister." He looked from the elf to Malcolm. "You understand, don't you? If you found out that your natural mother had had another child, wouldn't you want to meet them?"

His brother paled and glanced around nervously, as if looking for an escape route, though Alistair couldn't fathom what from. This was making no sense. How could Malcolm not understand? Not sympathize? He should be agreeing to help him go see Goldanna, not sit there and not say a word. "Are you even going to say anything?" he asked.

Malcolm covered his face with his hands and muttered something.

Remembering that the last time he'd asked his brother for clarification of a mutter that he'd punched him for the answer, Alistair cautiously asked, "What was that?"

He sighed, and then dropped his hands. His eyes looked no less troubled than before. "Could you excuse us?" he asked the others around them. At Malcolm's request, their friends quickly found other things to do further away from the fire. Once they had gone, Malcolm turned back to Alistair. "I have already met the other child my natural mother had," he said slowly.

Alistair smiled. "You have? So you have another brother or sister? That's wonderful! Then you aren't objecting to my going to see my own? I knew you'd understand."

"She's not your sister."

"Malcolm, I looked up the records. Contrary to popular belief, I can read, and I can read well." His willingness to be easygoing was rapidly fading away and turning to anger as his own brother continued to stonewall him.

"I believe you that you looked up the right records. The problem is that the name of the woman you looked up isn't... it's not... she wasn't..." Malcolm stood up, hands clenched in frustration. "That's it, I'm killing Arl Eamon as soon as we wake him from his illness."

Alistair rose from his own seat, any anger forgotten, truly questioning Malcolm's sanity. "Have you gone mad?"

When Malcolm looked at him, his eyes reflected a perfectly sane soul, if now overly serious. "The woman Arl Eamon told you was your mother? Wasn't her. I mean, she wasn't your mother. Just someone they made up. I've already met the other child your mother had and so have you, Alistair. We have the same mother just as we do the same father. Eamon told me not to tell you. But I couldn't just sit here and let you think that we weren't going to let you meet a sister. Or that you had some random sister out there you've never met because you don't. It's just us. My entire adoptive family was murdered. You never really had a family in the first place even though you were supposed to. Our father died five years ago but might as well have been dead all our lives. And our mother died after she left me with King Maric and disappeared in the Anderfels. I wish it was better, but it's all there is. Just us."

Alistair sat down heavily. "You... so we're..."

"Full brothers. Not half brothers."

"My mother didn't die giving birth to me?"

"No."

He felt lost. He could've had a mother all that time. And a brother. "Why did she give me up? And you? Why did they lie to me about who she was?"

Malcolm sat down across from him. "I don't know. I wish I did. I've told you all I know and I wish I knew more." He gestured toward the stacks of papers closer to his tent. "Maybe some of those papers will have answers. Duncan knew who both of us were and do you remember telling him?"

Alistair frowned. No, he'd never told Duncan, but he'd thought that the Warden Commander had known because he'd known King Maric rather well. "I assumed Maric told him."

"We'll never know unless those papers say something or if Arl Eamon will deign to tell us more, which I doubt."

"All right. Let's share, then. We'll both work on deciphering this code. It's not like we've anything else to do tomorrow, right?"

Malcolm smiled. "Only if you share the golem doll."


	19. Chapter 19

**19**

**Malcolm**

"Tell me something," Alistair said, startling Malcolm out of the letter he'd been reading.

"You mean like a story?"

"Ha ha. I'm trying to be serious, here. I need to know if you trust Morrigan. And I want you to really think about your answer, because you need to admit to the possibility that maybe Flemeth sent her with us for some reason other than what she said. And that anything she says might not be true, no matter how much you think it might be." He sighed. "I saw you go to her room the other night in Redcliffe."

Malcolm slowly put the letter down on the ground in front of him. He'd known this would be coming, it was inevitable. Theirs was a small group, and if people were keeping each other's extra company, the others would know. "So? I had to give her the grimoire we found in the Tower."

Alistair smiled a little. "And Leliana saw you leave her room the next morning."

"Are you people _spying_ on me?" He tried to sound outraged, but the blush that came to his cheeks clearly wasn't from anger.

"No! Nothing of the sort. Leliana was just going back to—"

"To what?"

"Um." Alistair's face reddened.

But Malcolm didn't feel like gloating about his point being made. Instead, he started to wonder what sort of point Alistair had been trying to make when he'd turned it around on him. "You really don't like Morrigan, do you?" he asked, his voice quiet.

Relief washed through Alistair's eyes, yet with irritation quickly following. "Well, aside from the fact that she's a complete and utter _bitch_, no... I don't like her at all. You do, though, don't you?"

"I don't think she's a bitch."At hearing Alistair clear his throat, he corrected himself. "Well, yes, she can be. And she tends to be toward you for some reason, and toward anyone who pisses her off in the slightest. And she's beautiful. I think so. Don't you?" He knew that statement didn't do her justice, though, and he could hardly think of where to begin describing what he felt for Morrigan. Even to himself. Also, he knew he'd just sounded like a total idiot.

"Sure." Alistair gave him a dubious look. "Beautiful just like... like something that's also dangerous. Like a beautiful, dangerous thing."

This time Malcolm couldn't hold back the mischief. "Admit it. You want her."

His brother threw his arms in the air. "Oh, I give up. Do what you want. Just be careful. You could end up hurt."

"Oh? You mean emotionally? You mean to tell me that you care about my emotions?"

"I meant physically. You could end up... _missing_ things, you know."

Malcolm laughed. "I think that's what she was threatening to do to Zevran if he hurt me."

"Just what are you two up to?" came Wynne's voice, returning from gathering plants in the forest with Gunnar at her side.

"Nothing!" they both answered lest they have to explain their conversation to their elder, and went back to work on the coded papers in front of them. Their conversation, as awkward as it was, had been a nice diversion from the boring chore of decoding all the letters and deadly dull paperwork they'd found. Nothing they'd read had yet to reveal anything of use to them, such as getting in touch with the Wardens outside of Ferelden, how to contact Weisshaupt, how to get to Weisshaupt, or even if there were any messengers the Grey Wardens could use that were not Grey Wardens. The only useful thing they had done so far was learn the cipher well enough that they didn't have to refer to the key any longer. Once that had been done, they'd had a fantastically wonderful, solemn ceremony in which they burned the cipher key with great fanfare. It took all of five minutes, and then they'd had to go straight back to work. That was when Wynne had decided to go out in the forest and look for herbs.

Malcolm couldn't imagine why. The little ceremony had been touching in a way. Yet from the way Wynne had looked at the two of them, he believed she thought they were touched in the head. Too bad. It really had been a touching ceremony.

With a sigh, Malcolm set aside another paper that had been just a roster listing that was to be sent to Weisshaupt but never had been due to the start of the Blight. The next letter gave him pause, though, as it was the first one he'd seen that had been more personal in nature than all the boring, official papers from earlier. Yes. It was addressed to Duncan and signed by a Grey Warden named Fiona who was stationed at Weisshaupt. Interesting. A quick skim revealed that the letter mentioned King Maric, but he got no further as the scouting party traipsed back into the camp.

"This rescue may not be so difficult after all," Zevran said, a smile lighting on his tattooed face. "The ranks of their guards are filled with the bastard sons of lesser nobles—the kind of bastard sons that are thieves, bullies, and lacking in great intelligence. The captain of the guards does all he can to control them with what few competent veterans he has."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "And how does that help us?"

"Obviously, because we're bastards lacking in great intelligence, he's saying we'll fit right in," came Alistair's dry answer.

"But you are not the bastards of a lesser noble. You are the bastards of a king. In Antiva, that would be an honor enough to get you assassinated," said Zevran.

"Apparently that holds true in Ferelden as well," Malcolm said with a grimace.

"What we're trying to say is that we might be able to get you two to blend in with all the other guards. You have the warrior physique, and we managed to secure the uniform chainmail that the guards at Fort Drakon use," Leliana said. "The rest of us can hide in plain sight. Well, aside from Zevran, but as long as there are shadows, he can move in them. The four of us will head into the city just before dawn, while Morrigan and Wynne can stay here at the camp. We'll have to be packed up and ready to move in case we are followed. While we were in the city, we also took it upon ourselves to secure two more horses, as we need them."

Zevran tossed a sack containing two sets of chainmail to Malcolm. "Each of you go try these on the make sure we got the proper sizes. Leliana told me about what happened with the leathers. Really, sized properly, leather armor is much more comfortable than heavy chainmail or plate. It's too bad you missed out on such comfort."

Keeping their complaints to themselves, Alistair and Malcolm disappeared into their tents to put on the armor. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, Zevran had correctly guessed their sizes. But when they stepped out of their tents, everyone frowned.

"What? Did I leave something off?" Alistair asked, glancing down to double check.

The first sigh came from, of all people, Wynne. "No. But you'll be recognized instantly, the both of you, by anyone who has met Maric or Cailan, or even anyone who has seen a portrait of either of them. You are not inconspicuous. And even if you were stealthy like Zevran or Leliana here, you would still be recognized."

"Too bad you are not Antivan, as you would make a killing," said Zevran, flashing them a grin. "There was this one bastard prince who did quite well working as a prostitute based on his uncanny resemblance to the king. Charged a fortune."

Alistair raised a bemused eyebrow. "Couldn't afford him, I take it?"

"Ha! That cynicism will serve you well, my friend. Hold onto it." He retrieved another sack. "As for keeping people from recognizing you, their guards do wear helmets that cover the entire face. While you won't have much for peripheral vision, you'll not be recognized, which is the important thing. Leliana and I can be your eyes."

Malcolm scowled. "I hate helmets." He could never breathe properly in them, and as Zevran had already said, it cut off the peripheral vision. He knew that they were invaluable at times—especially when things decided to collide with your head at a rapid speed—but another part of him felt that most of the collisions could be avoided if you could see them first.

"Yes, we wouldn't want to hide your pretty face. Do not fret, it will not be for long, my friend, and then you can resume showing off your dashing good looks. Speaking of, where did you get that scar? It is most sexy."

This time it was Malcolm's turn to gape at Zevran, who was doing his best to look innocent even after he'd made such a remark as his. Leliana hid a giggle behind her hand, while Alistair burst into laughter, followed by Wynne and Morrigan.

"I hate you all," Malcolm said, and then removed the helmet from Zevran's hands and put it over his head to hide his blushing face. "And it was darkspawn, if you must know." Malcolm's voice resonated a bit inside his helmet, making it sound different. Another point in their favor, he supposed. The teasing over with for the time being, they set back to work getting camp ready to move at a moment's notice, finalizing plans, and then catching what sleep they could.

The moon was still out when they woke and its light helped guide them into the city. Malcolm and Alistair approached Fort Drakon's front gates, marching Leliana between them. Leliana's act of being a captured Orlesian spy got them easily through, followed by an equally easy trip through the front doors. Zevran waited outside in the shadows, keeping watch, and keeping an escape route open. The bard put on a good show, even struggling at times in an effort to get away. Her show became too good, however, when she managed to make Alistair let go of her arm. Another guard appeared to help subdue and escort the prisoner, leaving the two brothers clueless as what to do about him once they found the Grey Warden.

Using the information they'd memorized, the group trooped through the maze of the prison toward the Grey Warden's cell. The guard who had joined them went along with them without complaint, probably assuming they were working under Loghain's orders. They were, after all, escorting a captured Orlesian spy. The Orlesian Warden was being held in a cell block apart from the general prison population, standard procedure for spies and those awaiting execution. The volunteer who'd helped them went into the cell block first and started down the hallway. Alistair and Malcolm let Leliana go, and she made a bit of noise as they did. The other guard noticed, glanced back, and came to a sudden halt. "What is the meaning of—" was as far as he got.

A pair of hands slipped out between the bars of the cell the guard had stopped in front of and snapped the unfortunate man's neck. As the other three watched, keys were removed from the body, the cell door opened, and the body dragged inside. Within a minute, a brown-haired man of around Duncan's age and a rather scruffy face stepped out to look at them.

"That," Malcolm said slowly, "was badass."

Alistair glanced at Leliana. "It seems he really could just be rescuing himself, you know. Do we even need to be here?"

The man smiled at them gratefully. "Thank you for creating such a distraction, strangers. I have been waiting weeks for this opportunity." His accent was Orlesian, but the softened accent that Leliana possessed, and not the irritating accent that Isolde had.

"You're welcome?" Alistair said, a question in his voice. Malcolm felt the same way. It seemed the man could've broken any guard's neck, stolen the keys, and escaped the jail without anyone the wiser long ago. "Blast it, I can't breathe in this thing. No one can see us in here anyway." He took off his helmet.

"Alistair? Is that you?" the Orlesian Warden asked.

Alistair's fingers drummed on his helmet as he thought. "Wait, I know you. You were at my Joining. Jader, I think. Or was it Montsimmard? I'm afraid I don't remember your name."

The man gave them a slight bow. "I'm Riordan, Senior Warden of Jader, but born and bred in Highever and glad to be home."

Highever, again. What was it with Grey Wardens and Highever? Malcolm looked pointedly at their surroundings. "It seems home wasn't as glad to see you, then. My name is Malcolm. Forgive me for being blunt, but, what are you doing here?" He didn't ask why the man sounded Orlesian. He suspected it was much the same as Leliana—having spent such a long time in Orlais, they'd picked up a lot of the accent. Much to Riordan's detriment, it seemed. He would've been a lot harder to catch had he sounded Fereldan.

"For the most part, attempting to hold my tongue," Riordan said. "I was sent when we received no word from King Cailan as to the outcome at Ostagar. The King had invited all the Wardens of Orlais and their support troops to join them. Then... nothing. I was captured with an offer of hospitality and a poisoned chalice. I was fool enough to think Loghain didn't yet know who I was."

"How large a force did you bring with you?" Malcolm hoped they were nearby, maybe hidden very well somewhere in the hills. Then they could somehow just take them to wherever the darkspawn were now and wipe them out without having to fight Loghain beforehand. Loghain would be fought, there was no doubt, but it would be better to stop the Blight first if they could. Loghain, though he was trying to protect it, was a threat only to Ferelden. The Blight, however, was a threat to all of Thedas.

Riordan's scowl grew deeper. "We had two hundred Wardens and two dozen divisions of cavalry. The first we heard of Loghain's edict was when everyone was turned back at the border. That was when the rumor reached us that Wardens were being blamed for the massacre. We finally decided it was safest to send someone alone, to learn how best to fight the Blight and this regime simultaneously. As a native Fereldan, I volunteered to make the crossing."

"Could they cross the border now?" Alistair asked, excitement in his voice.

The older Warden shook his head sadly. "The other Wardens won't risk their strength fighting Ferelden's civil war. If they spend themselves against Loghain, there is truly no hope. They recall accounts of the First Blight, how many cities fell. If Ferelden is too foolish to save itself, at least we'll be ready when the archdemon leads its forces further." He sighed. "But, perhaps if the edict could be lifted, a message could be sent and possibly bring the other Wardens and their troops in time."

Malcolm felt like punching something. "But not until the edict is lifted and we all know Loghain isn't going to do that. So we're back to removing him from the throne before we can turn to the Blight, which makes no sense at all." He looked at Riordan. "The thing is, if Ferelden falls to the Blight, how much extra power does that give the darkspawn? It gives them a large base of operation and I'm assuming many more for their armies."

"They would be difficult to stop, yes. But even more so if there are little troops and Wardens to fight them if they've already died fighting Loghain."

"Point taken," Malcolm conceded.

Leliana started getting restless. "You know, you should really be conducting this strategy session at the camp and not while we're still in this prison. The three of you can just walk out of here any time that you'd like. I can as well, but I have to do it my own way. I will meet you where Zevran is in fifteen minutes. If I do not appear within thirty minutes, do not come after me."

Concern passed quickly through Alistair's eyes at Leliana's words, Malcolm noticed. But his brother didn't voice it. Instead, he nodded resolutely and put his helmet back on. And as Leliana had predicted, the three of them practically strolled out of Fort Drakon without any second looks from a single guard. Malcolm seriously started to wonder just what sort of luck held them, and how long that luck would last. By all accounts, Loghain should have caught them long ago.

They found Zevran where they had left him, idly spinning one of his daggers on its tip in the dirt. He sheathed the dagger and stood up as they approached. "Ah! There you are! And unless our pretty bard has changed rather drastically, you were successful."

Malcolm made the introductions as Alistair was getting noticeably distracted by Leliana's absence. "Riordan, Zevran. Zevran, Riordan, Senior Grey Warden of Jader."

"Jader," Zevran repeated. "Lovely city. The Crows get a lot of business from there. A pleasure to meet you, ser."

"An Antivan Crow? Not a Grey Warden, then?"

Malcolm shook his head. "No. I'm afraid it's just us. Me, who Joined the day before the Battle of Ostagar, and Prince Woebegone over there who'd been a Warden for six whole months. Combined, we have almost nearly a year's worth of being Grey Wardens. It's been fantastic so far. Everything I ever dreamed of in becoming a Grey Warden. Oh, wait. No. No, it hasn't."

"You didn't dream of being a Grey Warden," Alistair said, jumping back into the conversation. "You were conscripted, remember?"

"Oh! How could I have forgotten the most important part?"

Riordan looked from one brother to the other before starting to laugh. "I think you are more Grey Warden veterans now than you think."

Malcolm gave the other man a curious look. "How's that?"

"The joking gives it away. It is an essential trait of any good Grey Warden, at least when amongst other Wardens." He glanced over at Zevran. "And their compatriots."

Zevran nodded. "The Antivan Crows are the same way, including the involuntary Crows, such as I was when I was taken in by them as a boy." He frowned at Malcolm. "You did not tell me that you were conscripted, my friend."

"It hadn't come up," Malcolm told him. He was saved from further explanations by Leliana's breathless appearance.

"Did they see you?" Zevran asked, hands drifting toward his daggers.

"No, they did not, but we should get going anyway. They will discover Riordan's absence soon, and we best not be within the area, no?" the bard replied as her breathing slowed to normal. "I will lead the way."

The small group headed back out of the city, Riordan proving to be just as silent and quick as Zevran and Leliana, much to the chagrin of Alistair and Malcolm. They made just one more stop, at the base of Andraste's statue in front of the Denerim Chantry, where Riordan moved a few rocks and retrieved a key. He gave them no explanation, and they didn't ask. When they arrived at the camp, introductions were made. When they discovered that Riordan and Wynne already knew each other, Malcolm hadn't been surprised in the least. It seemed Wynne knew everyone, almost. Then they quickly packed up the camp and got back on the road, heading west again, for Redcliffe.

They rode hard until sundown, holding only intermittent conversations where Alistair and Malcolm explained what they had been doing in the past couple of months about Loghain and the Grey Warden treaties. Once the sun started hovering near the tops of the trees, the group diverted from the West Road and into the forest beyond to make camp. Zevran spent thirty minutes setting traps while Morrigan accompanied him, claiming to be setting wards, though Malcolm suspected she just wanted to keep an eye on the elf. To everyone's surprise, Riordan didn't seem bothered by the odd nature of the company, what with a Witch of the Wilds, a Circle mage, an assassin, a bard, and two bastard princes who happened to be Grey Wardens. In fact, he seemed to take it in stride, which really made Malcolm wonder exactly how many different types of people were among the ranks of the Grey Wardens.

"I assume since you're the senior Warden that you'll be taking charge now?" Malcolm asked Riordan as soon as they had a quiet moment. The second he'd realized that he and Alistair were no longer the only Wardens, and certainly not having any seniority over the Warden they'd rescued, he'd felt a welcome wave of relief. They could follow again, and learn to be Grey Wardens from someone who already knew what one was.

When Riordan slowly shook his head, Malcolm's chest constricted with disappointment. "No? Why not?"

Zevran had given Riordan two blades from his unsurprisingly large collection of daggers and the Grey Warden played with one of them. "As soon as I am well enough, I must head into the Korcari Wilds to investigate the heart of the blight and locate where the archdemon abides. If we are to defeat this archdemon, we need to know where it is and how soon it might strike. Once I have that information, I must re-cross the border back to Orlais and make contact with the other Grey Wardens. They will need this news about both the political state of Ferelden and the status of the horde and the archdemon." A rueful smile touched Riordan's lips. "I'm afraid I must be the spy that Loghain accused me of being, after all."

Malcolm considered the situation. If Riordan's job as a Grey Warden was to find the horde and the archdemon, it should be theirs as well if it were that important to defeating the Blight. Had they been doing this Grey Warden stuff all wrong for these past months? "Shouldn't we be going with you?"

"No. The path you set yourself on after Ostagar is still the best path anyone can hope for if we are to defeat the Blight before it gets out of Ferelden and into the rest of Thedas. To that end, you and Alistair must continue on with that path."

Alistair frowned. "You realize that this particular path isn't exactly politically neutral as Grey Wardens are supposed to be. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I could very well, however reluctantly, end up on the throne."

Riordan's smile became genuine. "Then you would lift the edict, would you not? Grey Wardens espouse staying neutral because, more often than not, it leads to more support from every country. But when you're facing the darkspawn and the Blight, you must stop them at all costs. If it means Alistair must take Ferelden's throne, then so be it. If it means that Ferelden's civil war can be stopped with minimal bloodshed, leaving more humans to fight the darkspawn, then so be it. In the end, all that matters, all the Grey Wardens care about, is stopping the Blight from consuming the rest of humanity." His smile had slowly disappeared as he'd continued to speak, his eyes becoming very serious. Malcolm had been reminded of Duncan during the Joining, just before he'd run Ser Jory through. Yes, Grey Wardens were human beings, and often did things such as save others when they could, but if they had to choose between sacrificing someone or ending the Blight, that person would end up sacrificed. With great sorrow, yes, but sacrificed nonetheless.

"So you want me to take the throne? Is that what you're saying?" asked Alistair.

Riordan stilled his dagger's movements and studied both Alistair and Malcolm closely. "You were hoping I would say no, I take it? That I would take over this operation and order us all to Orlais and to regroup with the rest of the Grey Wardens?"

"Well... yes," Alistair said with trepidation.

"Were this almost any other situation, that is exactly what would have happened. Except your status as Maric's only living heirs, legitimate or not, gives the Grey Wardens a unique position. We still have the hope of defeating this Blight while it is here in Ferelden instead of waiting outside the borders as Ferelden first destroys itself, and then the darkspawn destroys those who lived through the civil war. Instead, the war can be stopped before it happens and therefore every action that can be taken must be taken for it to be stopped. While it may not look like it, you _are_ fighting the Blight. Due to the nature of this situation, my presence would hinder it. Those of the Bannorn who would follow you as princes and not Grey Wardens would grow suspicious of who was controlling everything were I to be there." Riordan sighed. "Worry not. I am not going to disappear. I will return, as information must continue to be passed between the Grey Wardens here and the Grey Wardens in Orlais and the rest of Thedas."

Alistair's face had dropped into his hands, his last chance of escaping his royal fate now gone. Malcolm gave him a friendly slap on the back. "Cheer up, brother! You still have to live through this Blight first."

"Now that's a happy thought," Alistair replied, looking no more reassured as he turned back to Riordan. "Are you going to Ostagar, then?"

"Yes. That is where the trail to the heart of this Blight begins. Oh, and one more thing." Riordan reached into a pocket and produced the key he'd dug up back in Denerim's Chantry. "Before I reached Denerim, I ran into a survivor from the battle. Technically, he was a deserter who ran when the horde made its appearance. He told me he had been a member of the Royal Guard, and he'd been entrusted with this key. If what he claims is true, it is the key to the royal arms chest that may yet still be somewhere in the ruins of the camp and the fort. He told me that King Cailan had told him that if anything were to happen to him, that it was vital the contents of that chest be delivered to the Grey Wardens."

Alistair raised his eyebrow. "You'll be taking us along at least to Ostagar then, won't you? Call me sentimental, but I left behind some darkspawn that really deserve a sword down the middle."

Riordan laughed and handed Alistair the key. "I would not think to deny you that. We will continue on to Redcliffe and resupply, and then we will go to Ostagar. Once you and Malcolm have recovered the contents of the royal arms chest, we will split from there. You two will continue to unseat Loghain and gather up the armies granted to you by those treaties. I will discover what I can of the archdemon then report the news to Orlais. I suspect the Orlesian Wardens have heard something back from Weisshaupt by now, so we will have even more instructions by then as well. After that, I will come and find you and we will go from there."

"Those sounded like orders to me," Malcolm said. Alistair kept quiet, holding the key up with his fingers and studying it in the firelight.

"So they did. But they only told you to keep doing what you are doing. Duncan chose well. Despite the two of you having minimal knowledge of exactly what being a Grey Warden entails, you have acted as any other Warden would. You should be proud of what you have accomplished so far. I know Duncan would have been. Now, you must excuse me. It has been a hard few weeks and a long ride for today. I find myself in great need of some rest." Riordan inclined his head slightly, and then went off to his tent.

"Proud, huh? Maybe," Alistair said, removing the leather thong that held his Grey Warden pendant from his neck and sliding the key onto it. "Do you feel proud?"

"Not particularly," Malcolm replied. "I think Duncan would have been proud of you, but not me." Feeling too awkward to speak more of the matter, Malcolm was out of his seat and striding into the woods beyond, Gunnar close at his heels, before Alistair could reply.


	20. Chapter 20

**20**

**Alistair**

Alistair watched his brother disappear into the trees, a reassurance ready in his throat, but he never got to say it. He didn't want to shout, that would've brought too much attention to an already touchy subject with Malcolm. With a sigh, he tied the leather thong back around his neck. Seeing Riordan in Fort Drakon had brought him a ridiculous amount of relief. No more leading, no more having to wonder if he was doing anything right, no more feeling lost. And then Riordan had told them he would be leaving and all that relief had fled his mind and body. They would have to do this, then. But at least they'd have Riordan around for the time it took to travel to Redcliffe and then from Redcliffe to Ostagar. They could pick his brain and get all the information they possibly could out of him while he was there. They should've done that with Duncan, but Duncan had always played his cards very close. In retrospect, they should've tried harder to get him to talk. But how were they to have known? Certainly none of the Grey Wardens anywhere had ever thought that practically all of the Wardens in a single country would get wiped out almost to the man, leaving only two junior Wardens alive to escape and carry on stopping the Blight on their own.

The secrecy of the Wardens, even within their own ranks, was often a strength, but in their case, a weakness as well. He suspected Riordan would be more forthcoming than Duncan, given that Riordan had the advantage of retrospect. Well, he hoped, anyway. They had almost a couple weeks to grill him, and they could hope he wouldn't be as resilient to his methods of questioning as Duncan had. Maker, that man could put up with so much and not budge in any way.

"Alistair, did Malcolm leave the camp?" Zevran asked from beside him.

Alistair jumped at least a foot into the air, no small feat as he'd been sitting down. "Andraste's ass, Zevran! I didn't even hear you sit down next to me!"

The blond elf grinned. "A talent of mine. It is a good thing I had decided not to kill you and Malcolm, no?"

"Somehow that isn't quite as reassuring as I think you meant it. And yes, Malcolm left the camp to walk with Gunnar for awhile. He was in a... mood, so to speak."

Zevran got to his feet. "We must stop him. He does not know where all the traps are. If he were to—" The assassin's words were cut off by a cry of pain and outrage from the forest.

Alistair stood up, hands going for sword and shield. Riordan rolled out of his tent, daggers already out. Leliana and Wynne had stopped mid-conversation and stared in the direction of the shout as their hands went for their weapons of choice. Morrigan, staff already in hand, ran up to where Alistair and Zevran stood. As Alistair made ready to set into the forest, Zevran put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "You do not know where the traps are and you would end up a victim as well." He glanced at Morrigan. "With me, yes?"

The witch nodded and the rest of them watched as the pair headed into the woods toward the shout—which had silenced in the meantime.

"Sorry for waking you up," Alistair said to Riordan when he noticed the man next to him.

"No apology necessary, as I had yet to fall asleep. What's happened?"

Alistair sighed. "Malcolm happened. He, um... he got into a mood and went for a walk, apparently forgetting the traps that the others had set."

That raised an eyebrow. "A mood?"

"Long story."

Riordan's mouth drew down in a slight frown. "I think I shall have to hear it soon if it's got him walking into traps he already knew about."

Movement at the treeline brought the conversation to a stop. Zevran and Morrigan appeared, helping an injured Malcolm between them. Parts of his armor seemed to be charred and Alistair could see at least one obvious gash in his brother's arm. As the trio got closer, he noticed that sweat rolled off Malcolm's forehead, coursing over several blisters on his cheeks, jaw, and chin. However, he was at least conscious and cranky, which had to be a good sign. "You set me on _fire_," Malcolm said, an accusing glare on Morrigan. "Why couldn't it have been a cone of cold or something? Did it have to be fire? Had someone told you how many times I was set on fire when we were at the Circle Tower? Because it was a lot."

Morrigan's face held a mixture of concern and frustration directed at Malcolm. "As I told you before, that trap was not meant for _you_ and if you had been more self-aware, you would not have found yourself on fire. Your dog managed to keep himself from being set aflame, perhaps you should learn and follow his example."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "And now you claim the dog is smarter than me." As they approached the tents, he tried to shake off their hands. "I can walk, you know."

Zevran and Morrigan both frowned, telling everyone else that no, Malcolm could not walk on his own as much as he might think he could. Alistair went to them and took over for Morrigan. Riordan took Zevran's place, telling Zevran to go reset the traps and cover any tracks. The elf nodded once and went straight back into the forest.

Wynne strode almost angrily to them, staff still in hand, and said to Malcolm, "Young man, what were you _thinking_?"

"I don't believe he was thinking at all," Leliana said as she opened both of Malcolm's tent flaps wide enough to let three people inside. It would be cramped, but he would need the protection when the mages went to work healing him.

When Malcolm didn't reply, Alistair looked more closely at his brother and saw his eyes starting to cloud with in haze of pain. His breathing had become shallow and labored, his body heavier in his and Riordan's arms as he bore less and less of his own weight. Wynne noticed as well and the anger fell away from her face, replaced by concern.

"We need to get him inside the tent, quickly," Riordan said, also having noticed. "I think there's more to his injuries than we can see. What kind of traps _were_ those?"

"Between an Antivan Crow and a Witch of the Wilds, apparently very effective ones," Alistair muttered in reply.

"Blasted fire," Malcolm said weakly, and then passed out.

The two other Grey Wardens brought Malcolm's limp body into his tent and gently set him on the bedroll. Wynne shooed them out of the tent, Morrigan close on her heels. For a moment, it seemed as if Wynne was going to kick Morrigan out as well. But after a shared look, Wynne said, "I've seen your work before and though you've no training in healing, you could be a very good healer. Work with me, please."

Morrigan, to Alistair's surprise, gave Wynne a quietly grateful look. Then they entered the tent and closed the flaps behind them. The others, left with nothing to do but wait, gathered nervously by the fire. Alistair immediately started pacing, wondering if any of the burns would leave permanent scars or impair his fighting ability. The traps might've been enchanted, one never knew. One of Leliana's hands appeared at his elbow and guided him to sit on one of the logs by the fire. "Pacing will do nothing, Alistair," she said, "except make everyone else more nervous than they already are."

He had to grant her that and he sat down. She seemed ready to sit down herself, but looked between Riordan and Alistair and changed her mind. "I think you have some Grey Warden things to discuss," she said. "Zevran is returning. I will speak with him while we wait."

Alistair nodded absently, thoughts still on his brother, barely feeling the reassuring squeeze Leliana gave his shoulder before she left.

"What happened?" Riordan asked as soon as Leliana reached Zevran.

"Malcolm got into a mood and decided he'd talk his dog for a walk." He gave Riordan a significant look. "Gunnar goes for an awful lot of walks."

With a forming frown, Riordan looked from the tent to Alistair. "From what I've been told, Malcolm has been stable enough to help lead you this far. This recent behavior seems quite a departure from that."

Alistair sighed and picked up a nearby stick to poke into the campfire, now realizing why his brother had such a habit. It helped take your mind off the difficult things when you had to speak about them. "The things that happened at the Circle Tower threw everyone into spiral. He was okay for a while, and then had kind of a blowup. Then he was okay again. And then you mentioned Duncan. You see, it's a bit of a sore spot for him. Well, more than a bit, obviously. Malcolm was involuntarily conscripted by Duncan the same night that his entire foster family was killed." He looked over at the other Warden. "How much do you know about what happened in Highever?"

Riordan's eyes drifted into a mixture of sadness and anger. "I heard mentions of some sort of massacre at the Teyrn of Highever's castle, ending up with the Arl of Amaranthine being given the teyrnir because the entire Cousland family had been murdered. Bryce and Eleanor, they were good people, and to be butchered as they were... as someone who was born and raised in Highever, it saddened me greatly hear of their deaths." He looked at Alistair curiously. "Were they Malcolm's foster parents, then, and not some other Highever family who were unlucky enough to be at the castle that night?"

"Of a sort. They raised him as their own. He didn't know of his heritage until after they had died. That in of itself would've caused some of the problems." He sighed again. "This is going to sound strange, but bear with me. When we were in Kinloch Hold, we were trapped in the Fade for a time by a sloth demon. Are you familiar with them?"

To Alistair's surprise, Riordan nodded. "Yes, actually. Years ago, when Duncan and Fiona returned to Weisshaupt from their trip into the Deep Roads with King Maric..." he trailed off at Alistair's puzzled look. "You see, it had been a party of eight who had left and only three of them survived: Maric, Duncan, and Fiona. With what they discovered in the Deep Roads, they'd had to report to the First Warden himself to explain. I was at Weisshaupt on other matters, so I heard the entire story. But I digress. When they were in the Deep Roads, they encountered a sloth demon themselves. Maric had been the one to awaken all of them, or I imagine they would remain there even now."

Alistair filed away the knowledge of his father's continued involvement with the Grey Wardens to ask about at another time. "Well, for us, Wynne managed to make us realize we were in the Fade. It had been myself, Leliana, Malcolm, and her together. Malcolm was the last person we found, so we all saw his dream." Alistair then went on to explain to Riordan just what the dream had revealed about Malcolm's conscription. "So when Malcolm and Duncan arrived at Ostagar, Malcolm was furious with Duncan, even after a week's travel. And it was quite clear to everyone just how angry Malcolm was, and just how much Malcolm was against becoming a Grey Warden. Later, I even found out that Malcolm had tried to run at least once on the trip."

Riordan chuckled a little despite the situation. "I think that might have been the Maker giving Duncan a little payback for his own first year as a Warden. He and I went through our Joining together, more years ago than I like to remember. He was not a willing recruit and both before _and_ after his Joining, he attempted to escape the Order several times. He was always caught and brought back, surly and angry at the world. It wasn't until he returned from his trip to Ferelden that he accepted his place in the Grey Wardens and became the man you knew—tough as stone and just as grizzled. You could tell when he came back, that he understood, sooner than the rest of us that had Joined at the same time as him, how ugly a choice it is to let the few be sacrificed to protect the many. I think that also influenced him in how he always left a soft spot for his recruits." Riordan's forehead creased thoughtfully. "Does Malcolm think that Duncan was angry with him, is that what it is?"

"No, that wasn't what bothered him. At some point between surviving Ostagar and the encounter with the sloth demon, Malcolm had convinced himself he should have agreed to being a Grey Warden when asked instead of making Duncan conscript him. A couple nights after we left the Circle Tower, Malcolm tried to pick a fight with me, angry about my having woken him from his dream in the Fade. The fallout from that was Malcolm realizing that his father had also asked him to be a Grey Warden, and he had refused him as well. Duncan had done a good job explaining the Blight's threat to Teyrn Cousland, but not so much to convince Malcolm. Because of that misunderstanding, for a long time Malcolm thought Duncan was a manipulative bastard, to use Malcolm's term. But after realizing that his father had wanted him to be a Grey Warden and why Duncan had asked his father as he was dying, Malcolm became angry with himself and thinks that both his father and Duncan were and must be disappointed with him." He tossed the stick in the fire, done with it. "That's what upset him. When you said Duncan would've been proud of him, he didn't believe it."

Riordan sighed. "And Duncan died at Ostagar, ruining any chance of Malcolm apologizing for being angry at him and acting insolently. And probably trying to run and most likely trying to wriggle out of having to undergo the Joining at every opportunity."

"How did you know that?"

"Because that's exactly what Duncan did before his own Joining," Riordan said with a fond smile. "Hunting those darkspawn with him had been interesting, to say the least. He had your back in combat, but once it was safe, he was always looking for an opening to run, or a loophole to use to escape his fate. But he was young when he Joined, too. Only eighteen. Usually we try to recruit men and women who are at least twenty or older. But Duncan had been sentenced to death, so it was either die then or die thirty years later from the taint. It seems it was the same with Malcolm. He is young, younger than you, is he not? He couldn't be more than twenty."

"Nineteen. I'm not sure when his birthday is, so he might've turned twenty in the past couple months. But he was nineteen when he Joined."

"All the more reason why Duncan would have understood. I honestly believe he would have been proud of both of you for as far as you've come."

Alistair tried not to blush, but felt himself failing. "Duncan also left us with words fairly hard to live up to. Looking back on it, it seems like he knew he would die in the battle. He told us we were on our own from that point, that both of us were Grey Wardens, and he expected us to be worthy of that title. At the time, I had thought he meant our mission in the Tower of Ishal, but now... now I'm not so sure." The grief he thought he'd worked through threatened to come back, full force. He pushed it back. Now wasn't the time. Grieving could come later, once it was all over.

"He may have had a hunch. He was like that at times." Riordan's eyes slid toward the tent where Morrigan and Wynne were with Malcolm. "But this is troublesome news, yes. We haven't the luxury for things to work out on their own, over time. Yet I am unsure of how to make him believe he would have Duncan's forgiveness and pride, and I am sure his father's as well." He turned his gaze back to Alistair. "And how do you feel about him?"

That made Alistair smile. "Honestly? I used to hate him. I used to think he wasn't really a Grey Warden even though he'd gone through the Joining. After Ostagar, I'd even told him he could leave if he wanted, but he told me off for that, and he stayed. That's when my opinion of him really started to change, because even then, when he still didn't want to be a Grey Warden, he stuck it out because he said he would and because the Blight needed to be stopped. After traveling and working with him in the past few months, I now see what Duncan saw in him." Then he laughed. "When Duncan dragged him to Ostagar, I'd thought Malcolm no better a Grey Warden candidate than the cutpurse Duncan had recruited the month before." He held up his hand to ward off Riordan's words. "And that was before I learned that Duncan had been one himself. It was funny, at Malcolm's Joining, how Daveth—he was the cutpurse—showed more resolve and courage than the knight who was the other recruit. He was determined to battle the darkspawn, to sacrifice himself and do whatever he was needed to do. The knight, we discovered, had only wanted the glory. It didn't end well. The knight tried to back out of it and attacked Duncan, so he became the second death. Daveth had already died when he attempted his Joining, which I know now was a greater loss than just a life. He would've made a good Warden, had he lived. Malcolm was just... resigned. He made it plain that he was angry about it, but he went through with it anyway. I realized later that going through with it, even when he didn't want to, was a strength of character Duncan had recognized, but I had not."

"Yes, Duncan usually had a good eye for recruits," Riordan said with a nod.

"He missed his mark with that knight, though."

"Sometimes, people don't show their true feelings until the very moment of the Joining. They'll put on a show, a convincing show, that they'll do it. Perhaps they even deceive themselves into believing they will see it through. But if a person is a willing recruit with the requisite skills, and has a chance of surviving the Joining, the Grey Wardens must let them go through the Joining. We would be at fault not to, as we need as many Wardens as we can get. From what I remember, Duncan was running out of time and not finding enough good recruits. If that knight volunteered, had the martial skills, and looked as if he'd survive the Joining, Duncan would've been hard pressed not to let the man try. It's too bad the knight couldn't finish the Joining."

The words gave Alistair a measure of clarity on why Duncan had allowed Ser Jory to remain a recruit and attempt the Joining. He supposed not everyone would be the most ideal recruit. Malcolm had called Jory on it, though, back in the Wilds. He'd named him a coward to his face, and Alistair had scolded him for it. Now he knew he shouldn't have done that. Perhaps if he'd supported Malcolm in that matter, Jory might have been a clear case of someone to cut loose. But even by then, it must have been too late for Jory to back out. Not when he knew parts of the Joining ritual before he'd even gotten to it. No, Jory had been committed to his course by then, as much a conscript as Malcolm and Daveth.

Riordan had continued talking as Alistair mused. "We won't be able to convince Malcolm, I don't think. He'll eventually have to convince himself. This trip to Ostagar might help him somewhat, perhaps give him some closure. But we must make sure he does not walk off alone again."

Next to Malcolm's tent, Gunnar raised his head and barked at them.

"That he does not walk off with only his warhound," Riordan amended, looking at the dog. "As intelligent a wardog as you are, some traps are too hard for even you to detect."

Gunnar huffed and went back to staring the tent's entrance.

"Perhaps you should make it an order while you're here being all Senior Grey Warden-like," Alistair said.

Riordan's eyes returned to the tent. "Perhaps I will. It's been awhile since I ordered younger Grey Wardens around. Maybe I miss it. You never know."

The tent flaps parted and Wynne walked out, looking tired. She used her staff to lean on as she made her way over to the fire and sat down next to Alistair. "He's resting now. Morrigan volunteered to watch him. Well, not volunteered. Insisted. But he will be fine. He'll need to avoid combat for a few days, but he will be able to travel in the morning. And we managed to keep the burns from scarring, so he won't have to deal with itching and discomfort from that, either."

"Good," Riordan said, while Alistair merely breathed a sigh of relief.

"And Malcolm needs to not leave camp by himself again." Wynne gave Alistair a pointed look. "No matter how much you don't want to confront him if he's worked himself into a mood, you must either stop him or go with him. Actually, if traps have been set, just stop him. If it leads to an argument then it leads to an argument. However painful it might be, he needs to get past this, or it will eventually get him killed."

Alistair glanced sharply at Wynne. "Killed? Really?"

"He might not pay as much attention that he should in combat. He'll leave an opening and that will be that." She frowned. "And sometimes, he might not even care about living. You saw how he was in the Fade, Alistair. Duncan literally had to drag him out of that castle. He wanted to die with his parents. Part of him still feels he shouldn't have survived and he should have died protecting them. What happened the other night when he realized what his father wanted for him was only a step in a long process. Forgiving yourself is something that takes far longer for someone else to forgive you. And when the person you need forgiveness from has died, it becomes up to you to grant that forgiveness. Malcolm won't allow it for himself. At some point, we might have to drag him into the world of the living as much as Duncan did. If the sloth demon hadn't chosen that particular dream for Malcolm, it wouldn't be like this. But that demon did a number on him and he'd only been holding himself together before with sheer determination." The mage turned to Riordan. "I wish you could stay. Both of them could use your guidance."

Riordan inclined his head slightly. "Yes, I realize that, now more than ever. But as I explained to both Alistair and Malcolm, the Blight takes precedence. I must journey into the Wilds to find out where the archdemon is, and then I must report back to the Orlesian Wardens before they write off Ferelden for good. At least they have you, my friend. You have worked closely with the Grey Wardens before, and you knew Duncan for almost as long as I did, and just as well. Were matters not so pressing, I would stay, and relieve them of having to accomplish these tasks alone and so young. But the Blight doesn't care about age or wisdom, time or politics. As much as it might pain any of us, the Grey Wardens have a duty to protect mankind from the darkspawn."

"I know," Wynne replied quietly. "That's why I made it a wish. I have one request that you can fulfill, however. When you go to the ruins of Ostagar, I would like to accompany you. The events that transpired there still haunt my thoughts and I would like some closure myself."

"Of course." Riordan stood up. "And now that I know our wayward young Warden will be okay, I will be attempting to sleep yet again. Please, no one else catch fire." He left for his tent.

Alistair went back to studying the flames, sleepiness refusing to settle in. Maybe he should just tell the rest of them to go to bed and he'd take watch since he doubted he'd be able to fall asleep. Might as well put the insomnia to good use, after all. He'd assumed after the other night that his brother was better off, but now it seemed he was either the same or worse, according to people who were certainly more wise than him. Though, he and Malcolm weren't fighting anymore, so there was that at least. And now Riordan expected them to continue with this almost unreal plan to get Loghain off the throne and him on it. When he'd been a kid in Redcliffe, before he'd been sent to the Chantry, he'd thought he'd live a normal life. Grow up, find some sort of trade, have a wife, children. But once he'd become a templar initiate, the dreams had started to fade, replaced by the nightmare of eventually becoming one of the lyrium addicted full templars enslaved to the Chantry as much as the mages were their prisoners. Duncan had saved him from that fate, giving him a new life as a Grey Warden, and even almost a family within the brotherhood of the Order.

Then there had been the Blight. Ostagar. Everyone dying except him and Malcolm, Loghain threatening all of Ferelden while trying to save it from the specter of Orlesian invasion that he always saw hovering on the horizon instead of the darkness and corruption that was the Blight. And now the only way anyone saw to save Ferelden was for him to become something he wanted even less than to become a templar—King. Normal was something that nearly all people lived, and for him, it would forever be nothing but a dream.

"I'll never lead a normal life, will I?" he asked Wynne, who had remained at the fire with him.

"No," she said. Blunt, but not without sympathy. "You won't."

He sighed. "I already knew the answer. Don't know why I asked."

"Because you were not looking for the answer, but for someone to tell you that in spite of it, you'll be all right. You wonder sometimes, don't you? If your life would be better if you weren't who you are."

And sometimes, he wondered if the mage could read his mind. "A little."

"When I was a young woman in the Tower, I came to the realization that the Circle would be my life, and I would know no other. Family, love, a simple life—these were things that other people took for granted, that I would never have."

"This upset you, I take it? It did me."

She smiled. "It made me very moody. All I could think of was being trapped in that Tower, with no way out and no end in sight. I started hating myself, and my life, and one night I found myself in the Tower's chapel. I was seeking refuge, maybe answers."

Alistair looked over at her incredulously. "It's hard to imagine you as a moody youth." As hard as it was to imagine Duncan a young thief, in fact.

His comment made her laugh. "Well, I was. Dreadfully morose. Surly. Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. The chapel. I must have looked tearful, or made some noise, because the Revered Mother decided to come out and speak to me. And because I had no one else to talk to, I talked to her. I must have said many silly things. But she told me the that the Maker puts us all on our paths for a reason, and fighting our intended course is what causes so much anguish."

He could see that. Certainly he could with his brother. Malcolm not accepting being a Grey Warden, not accepting the invitation when it was extended, had given him no end of anguish since. Perhaps if he kept acting the same way about becoming King, he would end up the same as his brother. "And that made you feel better?" he asked, wondering if he was meant to as well, because he sure didn't.

"I thought the old biddy was full of rubbish," Wynne said in an amused tone. "I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, and I knew everything. So I left. But I always found my way back to that chapel, and as the years passed, I began to see the truth of her words. We were supposed to be polar opposites—mage and priest—but we weren't. There was much about us that was the same."

"But priests choose to be priests. Mages don't," Alistair pointed out.

"Not all priests choose their paths. Some children are given to the Chantry to raise and become initiates, as you well know. The Revered Mother had lived in the Chantry all her life, as I had been in the Tower for all of mine. She taught me that you can find your family in the people around you, that you can love your work and find fulfillment in duty. And there is joy, even in self sacrifice. If you put others before yourself, then their well being is yours, and their happiness is your happiness."

He scowled. "Would you hate me if I said you were full of rubbish?"

Wynne laughed again. "No, I wouldn't. I once thought the same thing of someone else." She turned to him, her eyes now serious. "Alistair, you can scream and cry and be angry about the path you must take that will end in you being king, or you can accept it and allow yourself to see the good in it. That is your choice." She stood, back to her normal, not quite as serious self. "What you don't have a choice about right now, young man, is about getting some sleep. You might not notice it, but your eyes keep trying to seal themselves shut. Zevran and Leliana have already accepted taking the watch for the night between themselves. Go and sleep. You will need your strength for the journey that lies ahead."

The weight of having to take the crown in the near future settled on his shoulders once again, even as he headed for his tent. He wondered if Maric had felt the same way. Cailan seemed to relish in being King, but he'd been raised for it. Had Maric? The man had spent half of his life living on the run and in the hills and remote forests in Ferelden for the Rebellion. He'd grown up far from anything that could be considered a royal court. And once he'd found himself in court, he'd been a good king. But had he ever felt comfortable in the role? He'd spent an awful lot of time with the Grey Wardens, it seemed, from all the stories he was hearing. At some point he wanted to know the whole story, but he wasn't sure anyone would tell him with full disclosure. Or if anyone who knew everything even remained alive to tell the tale.


	21. Chapter 21

**21**

**Malcolm**

He opened his eyes to see Morrigan asleep nearby. At least, he assumed she was asleep. One could never be entirely sure with her. His head felt like it wanted to implode and he had bandages on his arms, the skin underneath them itching like mad. What had happened?

Then it came back to him. He'd left camp in a snit and somehow had blundered into a trap one of his own industrious rogues had set. Brilliant Grey Warden he was, almost causing his own death. Too bad Duncan hadn't been around to knock some sense into him again. His hand went to his face, remembering the burning blisters from the night before. The skin he found felt smooth aside from stubble, entirely painless. Not even itchy, unlike his arms, where at this point he wanted to rip the bandages off and scratch his skin raw. Which, he figured, would probably just serve to make Morrigan and Wynne even more annoyed at him.

"You have awakened, I see," Morrigan said.

He turned suddenly, regretting it as he did. No sudden movements. Needed to remember that. "Yes. I seem to recall that you set me on fire."

She narrowed her amber eyes at him. "You set _yourself_ on fire. Wynne and I saved you from your own stupidity. We'd better not have to do that again. I would be most unhappy with you."

He looked away, thinking that he'd made too many people unhappy with him as of late.

Morrigan's hand reached out and grasped his chin, gently turning his head so that he faced her. "You could have died last night. There were other, stronger traps out there that would have killed you outright. Now 'tis not enough for you to believe you should be dead that you must actively seek out death to rectify this error?"

The hurt in her eyes crushed him inside. "That's not what happened."

"No? Then what was it? Pray, tell me, so that I might understand."

Then he realized he didn't have an answer. He didn't know. Had he conveniently forgotten about the traps? Was he so convinced that he'd failed and disappointed the others badly enough that he sought escape in a permanent way?

"You cannot even understand yourself," she answered for him, "much less help me to understand you." Then she kissed him, softly, and briefly touched her forehead to his before withdrawing. "You must begin to live." She let his chin go, but this time he didn't look away. Her hands reached into a bag at her side. "And since you insist on wandering away so much, I have something for you."

He gave her a curious look. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"

Morrigan rolled her eyes. "I meant I have a gift for you. 'Tis a ring." She held up her hand to ward off his question. "Now, before you get any foolish notions, let me explain. Flemeth once gave me the ring because it allowed her to find me no matter where I went, in case I was ever captured by hunters. I disabled its power as soon as we left the Wilds. Recently, however, I thought to change it. Now, I will be able to find whoever wears it instead." Then she extended the silver ring to him.

He accepted it then held it in his fingers to study the intricate weaving engraved around the silver. "It's a sweet gift. Thank you."

She scowled at his thanks. "'Tis not given out of sentimentality. I believe you are too important to risk. If you wander off again and are captured or injured and do not make a sound, this ring would allow the rest of us to find you quickly. And perhaps I would then allow that fool brother of yours to pound some sense into your fool head."

"So you're giving it to me purely out of practicality?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

This time it was her eyes that darted about the tent, unable to maintain eye contact. "I... I have no desire to see us part company so soon. Not unless we wish to, that is. Do not read more into it than is there. You have supplied me with equipment, certainly this is not so very different, is it?"

He waited until she looked him in the eye again before saying, "Thank you for the gift."

Something warm passed through her eyes, just to be chased out immediately and for them to become guarded again. "You... are welcome. Now, you must get up. We need to break camp and continue heading for Redcliffe. The others are waiting, I am sure." Then she fled the tent, leaving a bewildered young man behind.

He placed the ring on the same leather thong that carried the small vial given to him at his Joining. After he placed it back around his neck, Malcolm got to his feet, every muscle complaining loudly as he did so. His armor was nearby, soot and ash covering parts of it. He inspected further. Was some of it _charred_? Maker, he needed to discuss with Zevran just what sorts of traps they had out. He put on what he could, leaving the gauntlets off because they wouldn't fit over the bandages, and there was no telling what Wynne or Morrigan would do to him if he took them off. Then he put everything else away in his pack, shouldered it carefully, and ducked out of the tent.

As soon as he left it, Leliana gently moved him to the side and started the task of taking down his tent. He began to complain, but she waved him off and told him it was faster for her to do it in his current physical state. Realizing how tired he was just carrying his pack, he reluctantly agreed. He wandered towards the horses and their stacked saddles, squinting toward the horizon to confirm that it was indeed barely first light. Even then, the sun hurt a bit. When he reached the saddles, he found his brother already in the middle of saddling the horses.

Alistair grinned at him. "Good morning, sunshine."

His brother just had to be a morning person. Of all the things for him to take away from his Chantry upbringing, it had to be good cheer in the morning. On seeing that Alistair had already saddled his horse for him, Malcolm said nothing, just slung his pack up onto the horse and secured it before turning back toward the rest of camp. Wait, no, make that the former camp. All the tents were taken down, everyone had packs ready to put on the horses, and even the firepit had been covered with dirt and rocks and somehow, rooted, living grass. Aside from some bent and broken grasses and ferns, no one would know anyone had ever been there. Impressive.

No work for him to be doing, it seemed. With a sigh, he mounted his horse and waited for the others. Wynne caught his eye. "How are you feeling this morning, young man?"

"Tired. Stiff. A bit broken." He cast a look at his bandaged arms. "Itchy."

"Scratch those and I will—"

Malcolm raised his hand. "I know. I know. Scratch them and they'll become horribly, terribly infected and as I moan about in pain you'll just watch me all smug and say I told you so."

She smiled a little. "Something like that. Leave those bandages alone. A lot of work went into healing you last night."

"I know. I'm sorry." He looked away, wondering how often he'd be doing that today. And apologizing, that too. The rest of the morning's greetings were just as awkward. Apparently it would be a rather awkward day.

After they'd been on the road for an hour, Wynne reappeared at his side, admonishing him for not eating breakfast and handing him some food. He started to protest, but found himself silenced at her glare. Sometimes, Wynne reminded him too much of his mother. At times, enough that it hurt at the memory. He wouldn't tell her that, though, because she meant well. Besides, at other times, they were welcome memories. As the hours went by, he felt his energy returning.

Halfway through the day, Malcolm felt a dark pull inside, drawing his attention south to notice the dark cloud of the Blight hanging low in the sky. It was closer now than it had been during the battle at Ostagar. He frowned at it, suppressing a shiver. The darkspawn had moved even further north, then, bringing more of the Blight to Ferelden while Loghain kept insisting the trouble was Orlais. The Blight was right there, spreading its disease through the sky as much as it did the earth and people beneath it. "How could he not see that?" Malcolm asked himself, unable to look away from the roiling black cloud.

"You feel it?" Riordan asked from beside him.

Malcolm wondered just when the man had fallen back to ride next to him. He hadn't even noticed. "Yes," he replied, not bothering to ask how long the other Warden had been there. "It's the taint, isn't it? That's what made me look at first. I'd been focused on the road and suddenly I was looking south to see... that."

"It is only the beginning, I'm afraid."

Malcolm looked sidelong at Riordan. "Grey Wardens are so often filled with such great news. Darkspawn, Blights, archdemons, drink this or die, by the way now you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life, which, also by the way, will be drastically shortened should you manage not to get yourself killed by darkspawn within the next thirty years. But, hey! You'll be able to sense darkspawn, so you're good. Except when they can sense you. Then, not so much." He frowned, tapping his finger thoughtfully on his chin. "I'm sure I missed something. There are so many surprises!"

"Bitter?"

"A little, maybe." Malcolm sighed, keeping his eyes away from the south and looking ahead towards his brother instead. "At least I don't have to be a Grey Warden _and_ become King. There's that, I suppose. I could also be dead, which, come to think of it, would probably be more restful."

"They do tend to say you can sleep when you're dead."

Malcolm scowled. Riordan was as patient as Duncan, it seemed, and could not be driven away with insolent words. Perhaps it was some sort of prerequisite to becoming the Grey Warden version of a commanding officer. But if Riordan continued to ride next to him, it was going to become very difficult to sulk. And he strongly suspected that Riordan was doing that on purpose. He scowled again for good measure, yet felt no better. Before he could say anything else, a change in the landscape caught his eye. Actually, it was a less a change and more of a 'Holy Maker, I've stepped into another world' occasion. The trees surrounding the road on the south side had been verdant, vibrant, and living when they'd passed through a week ago. And now... all the life was gone. The land seemed blasted, either barren or corrupted, the trees cracked, dry and wizened. The earth had died in the south under the shadow of that dark cloud and the corrupted feet of the darkspawn.

In the distance, he saw a windmill, one that he remembered being in Lothering. Or at least one very much like it.

Lothering? He glanced behind them, and then back up front, checking to see the road markers. Unable to find one, he drew to a halt and studied the windmill, checking to see if it was on a hill and if there was a road within sight of it. There was. That town in the distance was Lothering, he was sure of it. That meant they were only a few miles from the crossroads. He had to see it, had to find out if there was anyone left to save. How could they not have shouted at the refugees to leave that town before they took their own leave? Without a word to the others, he kicked his horse to a gallop and made haste for the village. He heard shouts and questions behind him as he rode but didn't stop to answer them. Then Alistair distinctly said something to the others about Lothering, and the rest of the party followed him at a gallop as well. Within minutes he was at the crossroads, the others not far behind. He came to a dead halt once he got close enough to see the town. What was left of the town.

Which, in practical terms, was really nothing.

It was as blasted and corrupted as the rest of the land he'd seen as they'd ridden on the highway. Corpses hung from various places, either makeshift gallows or just any place from which one could hang something. Trees that were not outright felled and broken apart were dry and split, the leaves gone, more dead than any winter's sleep. Malcolm cautiously moved his horse forward, his eyes scanning for movement. There was a murmur nearby, the dark whispers of the taint. He immediately dismounted, grabbed his shield, and turned to face the treeline while he drew his longsword. His muscles tensed, waiting for the darkspawn to show themselves. They were there, lurking.

Then they attacked. A small band of no more than ten darkspawn, comprised of hurlocks and genlocks. They came at him, their wheezing, guttural laughs preceding their blades. He readied himself, shield out front, sword loose in his hand for the proper control. But before the darkspawn got there, he found himself shoved back by Alistair, who stepped in front of him. Malcolm tried to push his way back beside him, but Riordan had moved forward to block him. "Stay back. Don't make me say it twice." There was a steely edge to Riordan's tone that Malcolm hadn't heard before, and he couldn't help but obey, even as he longed to join them.

But they didn't really need him. Not with Leliana and her archery skills and two mages at range, and then Riordan, Alistair, and even Zevran close in with blades. It was over in a matter of minutes and no one was even breathing hard. Annoyed at being forced to sit out, Malcolm sprinted past them and towards the village to look for survivors without first asking if he had permission. If they found any survivors, they could bring them to Redcliffe. They couldn't all be dead, could they? As he got further into the village, the black corruption on the ground became more evident, and the stench of death was overridden by something worse, bad enough that he wished for the other smell to come back. The air seemed permeated, as if it were tainted as well, and he was taking it in with every breath. But it didn't matter, he was immune, at least for the next thirty years or so. As unpleasant as it would be, he could go swimming in a lake of taint and come out no worse off than he already was.

Near the tavern, he thought he could hear voices. Not the pull of darkspawn. He sensed no more of those in the vicinity, at least for the time being. "Wait," he heard from behind him. Malcolm turned around to find that Alistair and Riordan had followed him while everyone else had stayed back on the highway.

"What do you think you're doing?" Riordan asked.

Malcolm gave him a puzzled look. "Searching for survivors. We came through this area last week and it hadn't... it hadn't looked like this. People had still been here, perfectly fine. Someone must have lived through this. We have to help them."

Any anger that Malcolm thought had flickered in the senior Warden's eyes disappeared into a well of sadness. "There won't be any survivors, lad."

Malcolm pointed angrily at the tavern's door. "I can _hear_ them in there."

As if summoned, the door to Dane's Refuge opened and three heads peeked out. The two men and one woman seemed rather haggard, eyes wide with shock and fear, but alive. Malcolm looked triumphantly from the survivors to Alistair and Riordan, only to find that Alistair had a crossbow out, bolt loaded, finger on the trigger. Riordan had carried over two more, one in each hand. Malcolm jumped in front of them. "What are _you_ doing?"

Alistair grimaced and said nothing. Riordan extended the crossbow in his right hand to Malcolm. "They are tainted. You can feel it in them. If we let them go, they will go berserk and kill others and taint everything they touch, spreading the Blight as much as the darkspawn," he said firmly, yet quietly. "When darkspawn sack a town, there are never any survivors."

Speechless and disbelieving, Malcolm looked to the tavern door and back to the Grey Wardens. "But..."

"They are already dead." Riordan's voice was just as firm as before, but as hard as his words were, there was compassion behind them.

Malcolm barely heard it. He glanced over at Alistair to see if he was sane. His brother still stood with the crossbow at the ready, his face pale, yet determined. So Alistair believed it too. Malcolm looked to the tavern again, placing his hopes for survivors aside and allowing himself to sense the taint if it were present.

It was. It crawled everywhere, over everything, in everything. He could feel it in the bodies of the people who peeked out of the doorway of Dane's Refuge. Maker help him, Riordan was right. They hadn't survived. Instead, they'd been cursed with a horrible, irreversible disease with the gradual taint. They would become ghouls.

Were they allowed to live.

Knowing his own face had become pale, he wordlessly accepted the crossbow from Riordan. As if those inside the tavern sensed their coming doom, they ran out the door and toward the wrecked Chantry building. Tears starting to film over his eyes, Malcolm fired his crossbow as the other two Wardens did, each of them taking one down with a clean shot. A quick death, better than they could have hoped for had they allowed the tainted to live. Malcolm wanted to drop the crossbow, but they had to search the rest of the village now. Without any further conversation, the three of them performed a methodical sweep of the area.

They broke through every door and searched every intact building, Malcolm holding his breath to listen for any sounds, not wanting to hear any people, and dreading that he would. All the hope from earlier had vanished. They got to the Chantry last, its walls partially collapsed and the roof entirely gone. The doors had been busted through and hung wide open, one of them banging against the remnants of the building's masonry with each gust of wind. Crossbows were put away and bladed weapons drawn. They crept forward silently, and then the door hit the stone wall with a bang and Malcolm's heart nearly stopped.

Inside, they found bodies upon bodies, some hacked and torn apart, others looking as if their owners could just get up and walk away if their hearts had still been beating. Blood was everywhere, accompanied by a great deal of darkspawn ichor. Nearest the doors, Malcolm barely recognized the body of Ser Bryant, the templar who'd done his best to help them when they'd visited months ago. His head was missing.

They found it moments later as they moved deeper into the Chantry. The darkspawn had placed it on the altar, lining it up with several other heads, among them the Revered Mother's. On seeing their dead, grinning countenances, Malcolm gagged, barely stopping himself from throwing up. Shame swept through him, that he was affected this badly.

"It's normal to feel that way," Riordan said, his voice gentle for the first time since they'd entered Lothering.

Alistair said nothing, except his face had gone from a deathly pale to a sickly shade of green.

Malcolm couldn't stop looking at the severed heads, desperately wanting to look away, but even when he closed his eyes, they were there. "I don't think we'll find anyone here."

Alistair reached out, turned him so he was facing away from the darkspawn's little display, and propelled him toward the door.

"Burn it," Riordan said once they were outside.

Malcolm turned to him in askance. "What?"

The senior Warden's eyes had kept their sadness, but the hard edge had returned. "It must be burned or the taint will spread." He produced three small bottles of a potion and handed one each to Malcolm and Alistair. "Pour this on anything flammable and it will start to burn immediately. Move quickly. We must leave here before more darkspawn arrive."

With the remains of the small crossroads village burning behind them, the three Wardens returned to the rest of the party in silence. None of them said anything as they got back into their saddles and resumed their ride to Redcliffe. No one asked them what had happened in the village, and they volunteered nothing. Malcolm watched the the column of smoke rise to join the dark cloud until he could see it no more, wishing it was merely a proper funeral pyre instead of an entire Ferelden town. When he could no longer see the smoke, he watched his hands as they held the reins to the horse, the same hands who had killed innocent people fleeing from him because they knew he was going to kill them. The fact that the taint was already killing them slowly from the inside made him feel no better. When he'd seen the fear and shock on their faces, their realization of betrayal from the very people who were specifically supposed to protect them from the Blight, he'd hated himself in that moment. And he wasn't much a fan of himself right now, or in any moment, really. He wanted to throw the crossbow away and never touch it again, but it would be a waste of a weapon and pretty damn stupid.

They hadn't saved a single soul, yet that's what they were supposed to be doing. That was supposed to be the reason for the very existence of the Grey Wardens—to defend mankind from the Blight. But ghouls weren't a part of mankind. The problem was, those people hadn't _looked_ like ghouls yet. The thoughts plagued him in the camp that night and plagued his dreams when he tried to sleep. Maker, their _eyes_. Those people hadn't turned yet and they had killed them.

The next day passed quickly and quietly as they pushed their horses as much as they dared to make Redcliffe by nightfall. Already, the castle had put itself back together, reminding Malcolm of the castle he'd grown up in. Certainly ridding themselves of the infestation of the undead had done a lot to liven up the place. Bann Teagan welcomed them, grateful for the news Riordan brought from his time spent in Denerim. After dinner, Teagan let them know they had full run of the castle and were welcome to help themselves to anything they needed. They would stay for one day, allowing the horses to rest after they'd pushed them so hard. Even though Malcolm knew they needed the rest, both people and horses, he felt antsy to move on. To be doing something instead of idling. He needed to get his mind off Lothering, but there weren't any pleasant topics to be had. The Blight sort of did that to everything.

He'd wandered to Eamon's study, wondering if he could find a book to read, when Riordan and Alistair found him. The three of them hadn't spoken much since Lothering, all of them needing time to decompress from that tense situation, even as they still continued to press forward.

"Malcolm, we need to speak about what happened at Lothering," Riordan said in a tone so solemn that it made Malcolm's heart leap up in fear. He knew that tone. It was the _you're in trouble_ tone.

Alistair, uncharacteristically quiet, sat in one of the chairs off to the side. Malcolm and Riordan took two other chairs, and they all left Eamon's chair alone. Malcolm's hands had gone dry, his fingertips numb as they traced the edge of the book he held in his hands. Now he would be scolded about how he'd objected to them killing the almost-ghouls.

Riordan leveled a serious look at him. "You nearly got yourself killed."

"I... what?"

His confusion must've shown very clearly on his face, because Alistair spoke up, saying, "This isn't about what happened with the people who were tainted. That's something you learn along the way, something that every Grey Warden has to go through, and something that every Grey Warden objects to when they first encounter it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be any more human than the darkspawn."

Riordan nodded at Alistair before returning his piercing gaze to Malcolm. "This is about your riding off into that village alone, without support, to where you knew a number of darkspawn would be. You are a good fighter, but even at full strength, I do not think you could take on ten darkspawn alone. And yet when we rode up behind you, that was exactly what you were prepared to do."

He didn't know what to say. It felt like it had when Morrigan had asked him to explain how he wasn't actively seeking out death and he'd not come up with a single answer. He hadn't wanted to die. At least, he didn't think he did. Not consciously. Yet looking back, his actions in the past few days were pretty damning. As damning as when he'd attempted to give up all stealth in getting out of his castle that night in Highever in order to try and kill Rendon Howe. And here were two more people yanking him back to living when he was obviously so bound and determined to be dead.

"Grey Wardens take risks," Riordan continued once it became apparent that Malcolm had no answer, "and they risk death every day. But they are always calculated risks so that minimal life is lost, civilian, military, and Grey Warden. We sacrifice only what needs to be and no more. You seem determined to put yourself at as much risk as possible and that cannot continue. There are two Grey Wardens currently stationed in Ferelden—you and Alistair. The Wardens cannot afford for those numbers to be halved due to unnecessary losses. You losing your life, as it stands, falls under the category of very unnecessary." He sighed. "Were this not a Blight, and had we a full complement of Wardens, I would just have you kept in the compound until whatever is going on inside your head could be sorted out. But we do not have that luxury, Malcolm."

He still didn't know what to say. His cheeks burned with embarrassment and he wanted nothing more than to crawl under a rock and die. Which, come to think of it, would just prove Riordan's and Alistair's point. Maker, could he be more of a screw up? Riordan's expression was firm and serious, but Malcolm could see and hear a kindness to it. And for some reason, that made Malcolm feel worse. It would be better if the senior Warden were angry, livid. Something other than whatever this was, the same ability Duncan had possessed, where you only felt like a huge disappointment for letting them down.

"I told you the truth before. Duncan would have been proud of you and Alistair for what you have accomplished so far and what you have strategized to do. But how you have acted in the past few days would have disappointed him. He saved your life once. Every time you put yourself in unnecessary peril, you reject his help even now, months later. He is dead, Malcolm, and he cannot save your life again. I know you were an involuntary conscript and I know a lot was left unfinished between you and Duncan regarding that when he died at Ostagar. Part of you believes that you wanted to and should be a Grey Warden. Yet another part of you is still angry, your own words to me the other day before Lothering proved that."

"But I'm not angry," Malcolm tried to protest, finally finding something to say.

"Take a moment and think on the words you spoke and how you spoke them. Both the other day on the road before Lothering, and even just after you'd gotten me out of Fort Drakon and we stood waiting with Zevran. I have been a Grey Warden a long time. As a Senior Warden, I have recruited my fair share of reluctant Wardens. I know an angry young man when I see one. You have turned that anger inwards, and it festers, and you throw yourself at whatever dangers you find so that you can rid yourself of it. You are a danger to yourself, and you will start to become a danger to others when you are supposed to protect them. From now on, you must stay with at least one other person unless you are asleep. I don't care who it is, but it cannot be just your dog, because he'll let you do practically anything."

Malcolm could barely bring himself to nod in acknowledgement of the order.

Riordan leaned forward with great intensity. "Let me state this plainly. I am not Duncan, but the same as him, I will not let you kill yourself. Too many people have died and will have to die in this civil war and in this Blight. Your life has been saved and I will not let it be wasted."

"Neither will I," Alistair said quietly from his seat.

Riordan sat back. "For another week, until we finish investigating Ostagar, there will be three of us. Feel free to say to me what you wanted to say to Duncan during that time. It might help. Besides, it's been quite some time since I've been yelled at, so I'm due." He stood up. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go check the stores to see what I can find for myself since Teyrn Loghain decided to keep all of my belongings. And I am sure Zevran would eventually like to have his daggers back. Good night, Wardens."

Malcolm didn't watch Riordan leave the room, as his eyes remained focused on the floor. He did notice that Alistair was still there. "I take it you're staying?"

"Are you asleep?" Alistair asked.

"I wish I was?" He framed it as a question as if that would make the answer better.

"Then I'm staying. No more running directly into a horde of darkspawn for you. Not without me by your side, anyway." Alistair gave him a rueful smile.

Malcolm didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

What he really wanted to do was wake up and have everything back to the way it was. But of all the impossible things he wished for, that one was the most impossible. Something that even hope didn't stand a chance of changing.


	22. Chapter 22

"Draw your last breath, my friends,

Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky.

Rest at the Maker's right hand,

And be Forgiven."

—_Canticle of Trials 1:16_

**22**

**Riordan**

Either the lad's emotional state had started to improve, or Malcolm was hiding it well. Riordan decided his coin was on hiding it. It had been a quiet, uneventful few days back on the West Road from Redcliffe, and now they approached the ruins of Ostagar in the early morning light. Yet the quiet, both from the darkspawn and from the younger Wardens, was making him uneasy. The progress of the Blight was alarming enough, but these two young Wardens needed to be at their best, especially when he would soon have to split from their group. Already, he regretted that he would leave them, but it had to be done. He had to find the heart of the Blight, and out of the three of them, he was the only one who could listen in on the darkspawn well enough to locate the archdemon and still be far enough to get away and warn the others.

Despite their own obvious abilities to lead, at least when they were in the right mindset, both of the young Wardens were already looking to him for leadership. That Fade business had done a great deal of psychological damage. Alistair, he could see, was mostly unscathed. Yes, it was obvious he grieved for Duncan's death and the deaths of the other Wardens, but it didn't affect his leading and combat abilities. Perhaps his brother still being alive and at his side compensated for that. The loss had also happened all at one time, allowing him the task of recovering from just one blow and not several. Malcolm, on the other hand, had taken several. Even though he'd had extensive training in leadership because of how he was raised, every man had a breaking point, and the sloth demon had broken him.

And now they hadn't much time to fix it.

He was truly relieved that his old friend Wynne would be staying with the small party. She would be a good source of the wise perspective gained only by experience through many years of living. Her deep knowledge of the Grey Wardens would also be a great deal of help. Even now, as they rode, Wynne was doing her best to bolster the moods of the young Wardens, riding up next to them and posing a question to the two brothers.

"Have you heard much about the Grey Wardens of old?"

Though Riordan did wonder where she would go with such an opening.

"I know they soared through the skies on griffons," came Malcolm's mischievous reply.

Wynne laughed. "Griffons! Alas, that seems to be the only thing people remember from the tales—the mighty flying mounts that bore the Grey Wardens into battle."

"Well, I wish I had a griffon," Alistair grumbled.

Riordan found himself entirely agreeing. Griffons would allow them to travel faster, allow them another flank to exploit from the sky, and even remind Ferelden of the Grey Wardens and what they could do. But he'd gone and studied the old aeries when he'd been at Weisshaupt Fortress, and they were as empty and devoid of life as all the blasted, blighted plains of the central Anderfels. No, the griffons truly were a thing of the past.

"Unfortunately," Wynne replied, "they've all passed back into the Maker's hand, so that wish will have to go unfulfilled. It was said that watching the Wardens ride in on their white griffons was enough to rouse a weary heart and put the dance back in the step of an old man. The Grey Wardens were powerful—feared and respected—but they also inspired the common people. I remember a tale that was told to me, many years ago."

Malcolm cast a sly grin at Alistair before asking the mage, "Does the story have griffons in it?"

"Maker's mercy!" Wynne said, the constant griffon questioning apparently getting to her as the brothers had clearly intended. "It's like talking to children."

"So does it have griffons in it or not?" Alistair asked.

Wynne rolled her eyes. "Yes, there are griffons in this story."

Riordan nearly found himself laughing out loud. He'd heard that tone of voice before—Duncan had used it often with Alistair and other younger Grey Wardens who always tried to needle him to get him to react in a way other than his implacable patience. The weary tone of voice and possibly an accompanying heavy sigh were all they'd ever gotten from him. It had made Riordan laugh whenever he heard it, because Duncan had been the same way when he was a young Warden. Served him right to have to put up with it when he was the Commander of the Grey.

Wynne continued her story. "The Blight had ravaged the land for months, and the armies of the great kings had amassed for one last stand. As the sun burst through the clouds that boiled and churned in the dark sky above, it illuminated a vast, seething horde of darkspawn, with the archdemon at its head. And it was then, when courage seemed to fail, and all lost to despair, that the Grey Wardens came. They arrived with the beating of wings like many war drums, and stood before the armies of men."

"Griffons?" Alistair this time.

"Yes, griffons." She glared first at Alistair then Malcolm. "Now listen to the rest of the story. The Grey Wardens, grim and fearless, marched forth, ever between the men and the encroaching darkspawn. They formed a shield of their own bodies, and held that line until the archdemon was dead and the last darkspawn lay trampled in the dirt. And then, demanding neither reward or recognition for their sacrifice, the Grey Wardens departed. When the clouds finally rolled back and the sun shone fully upon the blighted ground, the great kings knew they had lost no men and none of their blood had been spilled."

Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "This story isn't about a specific battle, is it?"

Wynne nodded in acknowledgement. "You are observant." Riordan was inclined to agree. The observation showed a sign of the man Malcolm had been before his encounter with the sloth demon. "This is a tale about no battle the Grey Wardens have fought. And yet, about them all. They have always defended us from the darkspawn, taking losses so we do not have to. People may have forgotten over the centuries, but nothing has changed. This knowledge has been blessing and burden for Grey Wardens past, and now, it shall be your blessing, and your burden."

"And entirely without griffons," Alistair muttered.

Around them, the trees had thinned, and they began to see signs of what had been the main army encampment near the fortress of Ostagar. Tatters of colorful fabric from tents stuck up from the snow crunching underneath the horses' hooves. Riordan explored as far as he could with his Warden senses and found no horde or large group of darkspawn waiting. There were a few around at most. No direct threat, only something to watch out for so they weren't ambushed. When Riordan found an appropriate stand of trees, he ordered a dismount and they tethered their horses there, well away from the darkspawn. He left Leliana, Zevran, Morrigan, and the wardog to guard the horses and supplies just to be safe. It would take them much longer to get back on their way if the horses were taken by the darkspawn or any daring bandit lurking about. That, and if there was any sensitive information about Grey Wardens found in the camp, only the appropriate people would know. Wynne was already one of the few people outside the Order who knew the entirety of the Joining.

The three Wardens and Wynne cautiously approached the nearest gate to the remnants of Ostagar's camp, the Wardens listening through the taint and with their ears for darkspawn. Nothing close. They slowly stepped through the gate, eyes sweeping around to detect any movement. All they saw were crows—a lot of crows flying and hopping everywhere.

"This is the gate the guard stopped me from going through," Malcolm said. "Duncan had told all the guards I wasn't allowed to leave the camp."

"Can't imagine why," said Alistair. "The fact that you even tried justifies the reasoning behind that particular order."

Malcolm smiled. "I didn't say it wasn't deserved. And I wasn't actually going to leave. I was just testing."

"Yes, I'm sure you were."

"Hey, if I was going to run, I would've left when Isolde kicked me out of the castle. I didn't _have_ to wait outside in the freezing—"

Riordan cut the boy off with an upraised hand. Then he pointed forward and held up three fingers. Darkspawn ahead, three of them. Weapons came out quickly, the blades glinting in the morning sunlight. They crept around a corner into a longer corridor open to the sky, an upturned wooden table in front of them. Two darkspawn archers turned around and started firing arrows while a hurlock charged them with a spiked mace and shield. Sword out in front and dagger trailing behind, Riordan ran for one of the archers, neatly severing the head from its body with a cross-sweep from both blades. He spun to deal with the other archer, but the mage had already taken care of him, the frozen body dropping to the ground and shattering into several pieces. Behind him, the hurlock wheezed one last time on the ground before dying. For the time being, he sensed no other darkspawn.

Whenever they had occupied the fortress, the darkspawn had taken any leftover wooden structures and set up barricades of their own across many of the access ramps to other parts of Ostagar. They had to weave around the barriers to find another ramp that would give them access to the rest of the camp. "Do you remember where the Grey Warden tent was?" Riordan asked the other two Wardens.

"Um..." Alistair looked around at the area in front of them. "Maybe?"

Malcolm moved to the bottom of the ramp and looked both left and right, and then back up towards the top of the ramp. "I think I can. The old temple is up there, and I've got such fond memories of that place." He pointed to the left. "Mages tents were over there, if I'm remembering correctly. The tree Wynne was under is right there. When I first saw her from really far away, I thought she was... well, I thought she was someone else. Left of us I think is where the quartermaster was. Those look like the kennels further up on the right, so that means the Grey Warden tent was straight ahead. Mind you, I could be entirely wrong."

Alistair narrowed his eyes at Malcolm. "Were you casing the place for an escape or is your memory just that good?"

"I just walked around a lot before I went and found you is all. You were busy annoying the mages."

Riordan left them to their banter and strode ahead to the remains of the Grey Warden tents. He knew Duncan would have buried the chest containing the Joining chalice, a copy of the Joining instructions, and the small archdemon blood supply he'd brought with him from Denerim. It would be important in the months to come were they to find any people that could become Grey Wardens, for Ferelden sorely needed more. "Is this where the tent was?" he asked once the others caught up to him.

"Yes, I believe so. There's the remains of that bonfire Duncan always had going," Alistair said. "Biggest fire in the camp, too, and he always stayed really close to it if he could."

Riordan laughed. "He wasn't one who dealt with cold Ferelden weather very well. He was born in Highever, but he'd told me his family had moved to Orlais a few years after his birth. He was much more used to warmer climates. Ferelden winters were torture."

"I think they're torture for everyone, especially in the south," Malcolm said, and then turned to look around the remains of the Grey Warden tent. It didn't look much better than the army tents outside the camp did. There were a couple chests that hadn't been smashed or broken into, pieces of wood that might've been cots at one time, and a few strips of blue fabric.

Riordan studied the place where the fire had been more closely. Yes, the earth below it, it had been packed down. That's where Duncan had buried the chest—and he could sense the taint. It wouldn't be deep. He cast about to find something he could use as a makeshift shovel and decided on a battleaxe he found close by. "Could one of you two open those chests and see if there's anything useable inside?" he asked.

Malcolm and Alistair gave him twin puzzled looks, like he'd just asked them to accomplish some incredible feat. "Do you have a key?" Alistair finally asked.

"You can't pick locks?"

"Oh, not you _too_," Alistair said. "Is every Grey Warden a former thief?"

That made Riordan chuckle. "I'm not a former thief. I was a hunter. Duncan taught me how to pick locks. I'd seen how handy a skill it was and asked him. We were friends ever since. Here, I'll pick them, you inspect the contents. Duncan would've buried the chest for the Joining chalice and the other necessaries for the Joining ceremony and I'm going to dig for that." Under the shocked gaze of the two other Wardens, Riordan made short work of the locks, and then started in with digging up the chest. He was still laughing. All the Wardens thieves. That was only about half true. Within minutes he had the chest out of the earth and open. It had been sealed with a lock only a Grey Warden would've been able to open. Everything was inside and unharmed. There was also another packet of papers in a weatherproof envelope. Frowning, Riordan took a peek at them. The one on top was a half-written letter from Duncan, addressed to Fiona. The name was familiar and it took Riordan a second to place her. Right, she'd been the junior Warden in charge of helping them through their Joining. A elven mage if he recalled correctly. He scanned the rest of the letter, encoded in the Warden cipher, and after he read it, had to read it twice more.

Duncan had been letting Fiona know about Malcolm's recruitment and the demise of Malcolm's foster family. Riordan had known Malcolm was Maric's bastard. It was obvious on meeting him, much as it was with Alistair. But what he _hadn't_ known was that Fiona was Malcolm's mother—and Alistair's. He was tempted to burn the letter right away. While only other Wardens could read the cipher, as far as he knew, this information would be a terrible blow to the campaign against Loghain. Though Alistair and Malcolm were of Theirin blood, being the sons of an elven Grey Warden mage would put too many doubts into the minds of the Fereldans. A single one of those heritages would be damning, but all three? He quickly tucked the letter away inside his leather jerkin, hoping it wasn't just a draft and that Duncan hadn't already sent a message out to Fiona. The others were nothing else harmful, just letters to other Commanders of the Grey throughout Thedas, updates about the Blight in Ferelden. Sensitive letter dealt with, he checked the seal on the small vial of archdemon blood. Still good. The special box that held the vial had enchantments on it to contain most of the taint that the blood exuded. Otherwise, it would cloud a Warden's ability to accurately assess how many darkspawn were around if there were any.

"What's that?" Alistair asked. "It reeks of the taint."

"Archdemon blood. It's used in the Joining."

"So _that's_ what we found in the safe."

Riordan looked up sharply. "What? What safe?"

Alistair shifted uneasily on his feet. "Um, back in the Denerim compound. Leliana, Malcolm, and I managed to sneak in and out unseen. We liberated some papers and sovereigns. We left the blood there. There was too much taint for it to be safe to carry with us. We left it inside the false compartment in the safe then locked the safe back up."

"You did the right thing, leaving it alone. Normally, if a Warden travels with any amount of it, it's kept in a box like this." He showed Alistair the box, popped the vial back into it, and shut it. "It keeps most of the taint from escaping and clouding our ability to sense the darkspawn. Otherwise, we get the numbers confused." Riordan then took the larger box from the chest, rechecking that the chalice and papers were settled properly with the vial's box, and shut that, too. At least it was a box easy to travel with and could fit in a pack without any problem. "We'll be taking this with us." He handed it to Alistair and had him put it in his pack. Malcolm and Alistair would be heading away from the horde for the time being, better to leave it in their care. "And it will allow you to recruit people, if you so wish. I can tell you right now that if any of your current companions wish to become Grey Wardens, they have a good chance of surviving the Joining. Well, perhaps not Wynne. She's getting on the old side."

"I heard that," Wynne said, glaring, mostly in jest, at Riordan.

Alistair gave Riordan a quick, solemn nod in acknowledgement.

He turned to Malcolm, who had finished looking through the chests. "Find anything?"

"Some leathers." He held up a silverite shield with a white rampant griffon on an azure background. "This shield. Pretty nice, not sure why someone would leave it behind."

Alistair shrugged. "Maybe the same reason why Duncan left his shield back in Denerim? He preferred two pointy weapons even though he could use a shield perfectly well." Then he looked at Malcolm's shield. "You should use it. I know you're attached to your current shield, but it's made of steel. Silverite is, well, a lot better. You could keep your current shield, too, but not carry it into battle or whatever."

Malcolm looked at the Grey Warden shield skeptically. "I don't know."

Riordan carefully studied the lad's reaction. He knew the boy was emotionally attached to his family shield, but a warrior as skilled as Malcolm was wouldn't just turn down using a much better shield in battle on a whim. "You don't know because you'd prefer to use a worse shield that's your family's shield, or because you don't think you deserve to be carrying and using a Grey Warden shield?"

Glancing up at Riordan, Malcolm opened his mouth to reply, and then shut it.

"That's what I thought. Use the shield, lad. You're a Grey Warden."

Before Malcolm could object, Alistair lashed the Highever shield to the side of Malcolm's pack. "Just try and undo _that_ knot," he told his brother.

"Let's find this arms chest," Riordan said. "And then we can take a look at the battlefield."

They moved on to where the King's tent had been, his arms chest also unbroken. Inside they found a dragonbone sword inlaid with many blue-colored runes. They glowed slightly. Riordan remembered Duncan once telling him about a sword like this. King Maric had found it in Ortan thaig in the Deep Roads near the end of the Rebellion, entirely by accident. Later, in his second trip to the Deep Roads, that time with the Grey Wardens, they had been highly impressed by it, both its make and its ability to repel and cut through darkspawn easily. "That's King Maric's sword," he told Alistair, who was holding it and studying it in the sunlight. "Those runes are enchanted against darkspawn. It's said that King Maric found it in the Deep Roads, in Ortan thaig."

Alistair suddenly looked at the sword as if it would burn his hands. "I'd heard stories about this sword. People talked about it when they discussed the Rebellion. Cailan inherited it, of course, but he preferred the giant two-handed weapons. I always wondered if he was compensating for something."

"I think you should use it," Malcolm said quietly. "I believe that's actually dragonbone. Between that and the runes, it's an amazing sword. You'd be an idiot not to use it. Besides, when the Bannorn and everyone else sees it, they'll see even more of a connection between you and Maric besides that whole family resemblance thing." It seemed even more of Malcolm's old self was stepping to the forefront.

"He's right," Wynne said. "Use the sword, Alistair. As much as you want to deny it, it's your birthright as much as the throne will be."

Alistair scowled. "Fine."

Malcolm flashed him a grin. "Aw, don't sound so sad. It's a shiny new toy. Think of it that way. It's way better than some crummy miniature golem doll."

Riordan looked over at Wynne. "Golem doll?"

"I told you, sometimes it's like talking with children." She gave the other two a warm look. "But it can be refreshing."

Maker. He knew these Wardens were nearly twenty or older than twenty, but they made him feel very old at times. Riordan picked out a packet that he found contained what he suspected to be the royal cipher key. That he handed over to Malcolm for safekeeping. The last thing in the chest appeared to be three letters, these ones written plainly. One was an official letter from Empress Celene of Orlais confirming that she was sending troops to help the Blight. Another was from Arl Eamon to Cailan, informing him of the readiness of his men for the Blight, telling him that he should not take the front lines with the Grey Wardens, and discussing the issue of Cailan being without an heir. If only Cailan had listened to his uncle. But even then, the entire army had been decimated, not just the front lines. Those there had merely died sooner. The third letter was another from Celene, but written in a very familiar tone, something he'd heard was uncharacteristic of the Empress. It was also short. More of a note, really, discussing postponement of a possible visit to Ferelden by Celene. He handed the letters over to Alistair and Malcolm.

Alistair frowned. "A permanent alliance? What does that mean? Just what had Cailan been up to? If Loghain had gotten even a whiff of this it would explain some of his actions. Excuse them, no, but at least explain some of them."

"Definitely not excuse them. The battle wouldn't have ended like it had if Loghain had made his flanking charge. Instead he walked away, taking his men with him..." Malcolm's eyes became distant, as if caught in an unpleasant memory. "And letting the army be overrun because of it," he finished, his voice as distant as his eyes.

"You saw it, then?" Riordan asked.

Malcolm blinked, coming back to the present. "From the top of the Tower of Ishal, yes. We... we could see everything. We could identify people." His eyes dropped to the ground. "We saw how Cailan died. An ogre crushed him in his hand. Duncan had seen the ogre before it got to Cailan and ran to intercept it, but the ogre just batted him aside like he was nothing. It took him a while to get up and he looked bad off, but he got his sword and dagger and ran up the front of that ogre, using his weapons like a ladder, stabbing his way up before killing it. I think that might've been what drained him, though. He left his weapons in the ogre's body and limped to Cailan. And Duncan died trying to protect the body from the swarm of darkspawn."

"I wanted to jump from the tower and down into the battle," Alistair added. "I wanted to save them."

Riordan waited until both the other Wardens were looking at him before speaking. "You would have ended up another casualty had you been down there. As much as it pains you, it is better that you lived. Otherwise, the Ferelden Wardens would have been wiped out entirely, and there would have been no hope of saving this country from the Blight."

After a moment of awkwardness where no one wanted to speak, Riordan decided they would just move on. Alistair left his templar sword behind, informing the others that he held no particular attachment toward it other than it had worked well for cutting and stabbing darkspawn. They left the main camp for the stonework bridge that crossed over the valley. Beyond the bridge, they could see the dizzying height of the Tower of Ishal, looming over the ruins of Ostagar. Malcolm and Alistair paused in between two spear-carrying Tevinter statues, staring out across the bridge with the chunk long missing from a part of the middle. Riordan knew they must be remembering something of the battle and allowed them a brief moment.

Then they pressed forward. Halfway across, they discovered a message the darkspawn had left for them should they have decided to revisit the battle—King Cailan. Or, rather, the King's body. The darkspawn had made some sort of wooden tripod-like structure, and then it seemed they had shoved the King's body onto a lot of spikes hammered into a wooden plate. Yes, it was a message.

"Oh, they left him here to rot," Alistair said, looking up at the King's body.

Malcolm said nothing, only stared at the body, his eyes bearing an incredible sadness.

And Riordan remembered that Cailan had been their half-brother, not just their King. He took another look at the body, maintaining some emotional detachment, and thought the body seemed remarkably preserved for it to have been months since the battle and the King's death. And for someone having died by crushing in an ogre's hand—Riordan regrettably had seen it happen before and it was an ugly way to die—his body was quite intact. It had to be magic, done just for the purpose of leaving this message. That had to be the work of the archdemon, directing an emissary to fix the body like that. So the body's preservation must also have something to do with it, either that or the cold, or some combination of the two.

Suddenly he felt the pull of the taint and his hands went for his blades as he turned toward the Tower side of the bridge. A hurlock emissary stood at the far end, making motions that might be conjuring. He was also wearing some sort of helm that seemed vaguely familiar to him. Then he realized it was a Grey Warden helm. That little bastard! And it was too far from them for Alistair to hit him with a smite right away. He started running for the emissary, Alistair and Malcolm close on his heels. But they couldn't get there before the emissary cast his spell and raised the dead on the bridge around them. As they hacked down the undead bodies, the emissary made his getaway.

"I recognize this body," Malcolm said, carefully removing his sword from the last of the undead. "He was one of the guards stuck under the Tevinter statues on the other side of the bridge. He greeted me when I went into the camp and I wondered how he'd known who I was so quickly."

Alistair nodded sadly, and then glared in the direction the emissary had run. "That thing was wearing a Grey Warden helm, I know it. I saw it."

Riordan nodded. "As did I. We must be sure to remove it from him before we leave this place. Preferably around the time we remove his head from his body."

That brought a small smile to the younger Warden's face. "I like the way you think."

They continued toward the Tower of Ishal. Alistair had explained at the camp that somehow the darkspawn had tunneled under the Tower and surprised everyone there with their appearance inside, since they weren't supposed to be there. Riordan had decided that the Tevinter ruins might be close to the Deep Roads, and that might be part of why the horde had shown up here.

"I met King Cailan here," Malcolm said as they passed through another part of the ruin just past the bridge. "Rather, he met us here since for some reason he'd decided to greet Duncan and me personally when we arrived. It was... awkward."

Alistair held up a hand. "Let me guess. You were rude to the King?"

"I thought Duncan's glare was going to burn a hole into the back of my head," Malcolm answered, embarrassment for his past behavior staining his cheeks red. "He started apologizing to Cailan about my behavior right away and Cailan just waved it off like it was no bother. But, boy, was it a bother to _Duncan_. I admit, I was trying to make him angry because I was mad at him, but he didn't even yell at me. Just gave me that look and, once the King went back to the camp, explained very calmly that the King was an ally and we should be nice to him and all that."

Alistair grimaced. "I'm familiar with that particular look. Was it the one where you wanted to crawl under a rock and die? Where you wished the earth would just open up and swallow you whole before the death glare drilled some sort of hole into your skull? Where you think to yourself 'why does Duncan use bladed weapons at all, he could just kill darkspawn with that look alone?' Was it that one?"

"That's the one, yes."

"I sympathize. Truly, I do."

Riordan couldn't help it. He laughed. His old friend had described the looks he'd gotten from _his_ Warden Commander much the same way when they had been young Wardens. If only he could hear his Wardens now. Yet the darkspawn had eliminated that possibility. But from what these two had witnessed and told him, Duncan had died as much because of Teyrn Loghain's actions as he had from the darkspawn. Unfortunate. At least it had saved him a trip to the Deep Roads for his Calling. There was some solace in that, however small. A slight smile on his face despite the circumstances, Riordan moved the group forward and into the Tower.

As they walked past the entryway, Alistair pointed between a couple columns, and then motioned to Malcolm. "Hey, this is where you caught on fire for the first time!"

"I hate you," Malcolm replied, scowling.

Riordan looked at Wynne. "Caught on fire for the first time?"

She nodded. "Yes. I'm not sure how much you heard when he was injured near the camp, but he mentioned it then. When we were in the Circle Tower, Malcolm kept getting caught above rage demon remains and they—"

"Burst into flame once they're defeated. Yes." He shook his head. These two were developing into fine Wardens, indeed, if they could already joke about catching on fire.

They found the entrance tunnel there on the first floor in one of the many dormitories. As they made ready to jump down into the passage itself, Alistair muttered, "Down the hole and into the deep. I can't wait to see where this goes. Can't be anywhere good."

The tunnel ended in more Tevinter ruins that had been covered long ago by the foundation for the Tower of Ishal. Riordan noted a deep, almost growling hum he'd heard before—in Orzammar, in some of the Proving tunnels, and then in some places in the Deep Roads themselves. Interesting. His theory very may well prove correct. Malcolm took point as Riordan fell back to the rear, studying the ruins more closely for clues. Then there was a very unmanly yelp from the next room where Malcolm had just gone. Riordan drew his blades, Wynne took up her staff, and they ran to where they'd heard the scream.

Giant, corrupted spiders surrounded Malcolm, whose face was a deathly white normally reserved for the first time someone encountered darkspawn. Then one of the spiders sprang and landed on the boy, knocking him to the floor. "Get it off! Get it off!" he shouted.

Alistair obliged and sliced the spider nearly in two. Riordan and Wynne took care of the other ones as Alistair helped Malcolm to his feet. "Need some clean smallclothes?" he asked.

"I hate spiders of _normal_ size," Malcolm grumbled. "I'd rather face darkspawn than those... things. Ever. Look at their fangs! They could sever your head or something."

As Malcolm continued to complain about the spiders, Riordan inspected the room. He noted two different exits. One, with the light shining through the opening, was clearly a tunnel out to the valley. As for the other, he had a suspicion but wanted to confirm it. "Malcolm, Alistair. Wait here. Wynne, please come with me. I'll need your staff for light. We will be right back."

He and the mage walked down the other dark, short tunnel and quickly found themselves in the corruption-ridden Deep Roads. "This is where they came from," he said.

"These are the Deep Roads, are they not?" Wynne asked.

"Yes. This must be one of the places where the darkspawn got to the surface here in the Wilds. I will have to follow this trail once we have finished here at Ostagar. Let's get go take that other tunnel and see what we can find in the valley."

Wynne nodded in understanding. He knew she didn't like the idea, but accepted that it had to be done to stop the Blight. When they got back to the other room, Alistair and Malcolm gave him curious looks, but didn't ask. He'd tell them later, after they'd finished inspecting the valley. They walked outside, eyes blinking at the harsh sunlight, the sun now approaching the middle of the sky. They were on the battlefield itself. Corpses littered the field, ripped apart or half-eaten, the sport of the darkspawn. Riordan could see a large, blue ogre's corpse midfield, the grips of familiar weapons sticking out of its chest. On the far side of the field, the hurlock emissary appeared again.

Its face smiled wickedly in their direction, its hands working to conjure more of the dead to fight them. Again, it was far enough away that Alistair couldn't just smite it before it cast. The dead came to their feet around them, grabbing weapons as they stood. Wynne got to a distance away from them so she wouldn't be overwhelmed, while Alistair and Malcolm waded right in the thick of them, back to back and working as a well-trained team. Riordan worked at the periphery, fading in and out of the sight of the bodies they battled, hitting them in critical spots and getting away before they even knew they were hit.

"At least he raised common soldiers and not any Grey Wardens we might've known," Alistair said as he cut the sword arm off of one of them.

"Don't give that thing any ideas," Malcolm replied, tearing an undead jaw off with his shield.

Riordan saw it before the others did. They hadn't given the emissary any ideas, he'd already done it. They just hadn't noticed it yet. On the other side of the few undead left to defeat was another risen body. And Riordan would recognize that bearded face anywhere, even as pale, soulless and dead as it was right then. Blessed Andraste, that emissary was going to make them battle Duncan's risen corpse.

He quickly looked behind him and saw that Wynne had noticed as well, alarm and disgust written plainly on her well-worn face. Riordan knew that he would have to be the one to fight him. He could separate the man he'd known as a friend from this corpse puppet under the control of a darkspawn necromancer. But the two grieving young Wardens with him wouldn't have the perspective to be able to do it. Though, he did hope the corpse wouldn't have the martial skill of his old friend—he'd never once bested Duncan in the practice ring. He slipped quickly into the middle of the waning battle as Malcolm and Alistair dealt with the last of the soldier corpses. "Both of you, go deal with that emissary. I will take care of what is left."

Alistair frowned and looked around. "But there's nothing left to—" The color drained from his face.

"What's—" And Malcolm's face became just as pale as his brother's.

They had noticed.

"I told you I will take care of what's left," Riordan repeated. "Go deal with the emissary and do not look back. That's an order."

The two younger Wardens, thank the Maker, did as they were told. They ran toward the emissary, Alistair calling a holy smite on it as soon as they were within range. Riordan adjusted his grip on his blades and set himself to battle the undead corpse of one of his oldest friends. As he slowly approached, a flash came from behind him and hit Duncan's body. A force field lit around it, holding it in place.

"No one will have to deal with it," Wynne said, walking up to Riordan. "That force field will hold until we can finish with that emissary. Then without its animator, it will return to the ground, where it belongs." Then she fired off another spell, this one directed at the emissary on the snowy ground, paralyzing it.

Malcolm took quick advantage and immediately stabbed his sword through the emissary's heart. Alistair placed a booted foot on the darkspawn's body and used the tip of his sword to pop the helm off the emissary's head. "Not for you," Riordan heard him say.

As Wynne had predicted, the body inside the force field had collapsed to the snow as soon as the emissary had died. The other two Wardens strode over to them, occasionally sending wary looks in the direction of the dead ogre and Duncan's body. "Wynne cast a force field," Riordan explained, "so that he didn't have to be fought by any of us." Rather brilliant, in his opinion. "Let's wrap his body in one of the spare cloaks we brought. We need to get moving and I believe we've a pyre to light for Duncan and King Cailan before the day is out."

As Alistair and Malcolm carefully wrapped Duncan's body, Riordan went over to the ogre and relieved its body of Duncan's blades. These dragonbone weapons had more darkspawn to kill and he would see to that. He would take the dagger, he knew, as a reminder of his friend to carry with him as he continued to combat the Blight. Then he considered the fate of the sword as they gathered up Duncan's and then the King's bodies, carrying them to a stone altar in the main fortress large enough for a pyre for them both. Malcolm took the Grey Warden helm they'd relieved the emissary of and placed it above the heads of the bodies. Using the fire potions Riordan had, they set the bodies ablaze, where they burned hot and fast, and would soon be reduced to ashes.

The small group watched the pyre silently until Alistair quietly said, "Draw your last breath, my friends, cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker's right hand, and be Forgiven."

Riordan felt that verse from the Chant of Light very appropriate, more so than Alistair could even know. He knew forgiveness was something Duncan had wanted in his life, from his dead parents at the way his early life had turned out when he'd been orphaned and had lived as a thief on the streets. Now Duncan would have that, able to join his parents in the Fade, and he Alistair had unwittingly said the words to remind him, should he be able to hear. And as Alistair spoke the last part, Riordan had looked over at Malcolm, caught his eye, and made sure he understood that the Forgiven part applied to him, as well.

Soon enough, all that was left of Duncan and Cailan were ashes carried up on the wind and the small group was left alone. Riordan hefted Duncan's sword in his hand, pursing his lips in thought. Then he turned to Malcolm and presented it to him, hilt-first. "Take it."

"What? No, I couldn't. You take it. You were his friend—"

Riordan pressed the hilt into the lad's hand. "I think he would have wanted you to have it, given how events turned out. And I think it's time you forgave yourself for what happened. You probably don't realize it, but Duncan forgave you before you ever became angry at him. He believed you would do what needed to be done, that you would come to understand the duty you were charged with. And you have. Take this sword and continue to fight the darkspawn with it. Every time you swing it, remember that you are forgiven, and that he is proud of what you have become."

Malcolm's fingers wrapped around the hilt and he took the weight of the weapon as Riordan let go. He saw in the lad's eyes that, yes, he did believe he was forgiven. Good.

"And now I must depart," Riordan said, slinging his pack onto his back. "In the underground ruins, I found an entrance to the Deep Roads. It's one of the areas where the darkspawn came out into the Wilds. I must follow this trail to find the archdemon."

"You're going now?" Alistair asked, looking like a lost puppy.

"Yes. Unfortunately, I must. You must continue on to find this Urn of Sacred Ashes and cure Arl Eamon. Once you've done that, you must gather the armies from the other treaties, the Dalish and the dwarves. While you do that, I will locate the archdemon as much as I can. Then I will return to Orlais and confer with the Wardens there before coming back to Ferelden and finding you. I will not be here most of the time, but remember, you are not alone."

Goodbyes were short, as they tended to be among Grey Wardens and their companions. Then Riordan traveled down to the Tevinter ruins, lit a torch, and descended into the Deep Roads, on the trail of an archdemon.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

**Malcolm**

"I take it you overheard what Riordan said when he found all the things we need for a Joining ceremony,"Alistair asked Malcolm the first time they had a moment alone after leaving Ostagar.

"I did."

"What do you think?"

Malcolm sighed. He'd been thinking about what they should do ever since Riordan had suggested it. Everyone who traveled with them put themselves at risk of the taint every time they went into combat with the darkspawn. If any of them went through the Joining, that would give them immunity, allowing them to fight the darkspawn without worry about the taint. However, the Joining would put them at risk for immediate death instead of death potentially thirty years from now. Or death from the darkspawn at any point in their lives, which applied to the first circumstance.

Basically, he had no idea what to do. He didn't want to lose any of his friends any time soon—nor did he want to have to watch any of his friends die, wasting away from the darkspawn taint. Or, even worse, have to kill them because they were turning into a ghoul. That made him shiver. Morrigan, turning into a ghoul, all the life draining away from her eyes, replaced only by the dark, black taint. Having to look into those eyes before killing her out of mercy to stop her suffering. He shivered again. Having to do that to any of his friends... he didn't want to contemplate that. But it was a possibility that couldn't be ignored. Yet he also didn't want any of them to die as Daveth had, eyes going entirely white before the taint choked the life out of them entirely.

In the end, the decision should be theirs, not his. "We should present it to everyone as an option. We owe it to them since they battle the darkspawn as often as we do. We don't have to worry about becoming ghouls or wasting away from the taint. They do."

"It could kill them."

"I know."

"And if they try run..."

"I _know_."

It started to rain.

Alistair scowled up at the overcast sky, not bothering to try and block the large raindrops from landing on his face. "I hate this."

Malcolm squinted over at him as he put the hood of his cloak up. "Rain? Or..." He paused, tapping his finger on his chin in an exaggerated motion. "Well, the 'or' part would be an incredibly long list. A lot of hating to be done in this Blighted world, that's for sure. Um, you might want to put your hood up before Wynne sees you and starts saying you'll catch cold or something. I'm sure if you eventually looked enough like a drowned nug that Morrigan will kindly offer to set you on fire, which, in the end, would just make Wynne more annoyed. With you, by the way, and not the mage who set you on fire."

His brother rolled his eyes and put his hood up. "I meant all of it, the short list and the long list. I mean, not only do we have to defeat the blasted _Blight_, but they expect us to be able to overthrow Loghain." He scoffed and slipped into the sarcasm that Wynne had informed both of them was a distinctly Theirin trait. "How hard can it be? He's just a hero. Oh, and a teyrn. With a bigger army. That's all."

"Maric and Loghain beat the Orlesians and the Orlesians had a much larger army than the rebels. Even more of a gap between ours and Loghain's now." Malcolm frowned, attempting to do the math. "I think. Well... we don't have an army yet, so maybe I'm wrong. But we're putting one together. That won't fight against Loghain, come to think of it. So... we'll have to use our wits."

Alistair shot him a despairing look. "We haven't any."

"Obviously not. Because if we _had_ any, we wouldn't be trying it in the first place. Hey, technically, we're just following orders now. We can blame everything on Riordan. I'm okay with that. He's got broad shoulders. He can take it." Over the past few days as they had traveled from Ostagar to Sulcher's Pass, Alistair had drifted into a lot of silences. Normally, Alistair chatted on and on while they traveled, often riding up and down the line of their group and picking different people to ride next to and chat their ears off. While the break from his chattering had been nice for a couple hours, the extended silences from Alistair were started to make him nervous.

"Also, Loghain is on the other side. In case you haven't noticed. The hero you just referenced? Yeah, one of our enemies," said Alistair.

Even through the intensity of his own issues, Malcolm had noticed how Alistair had started to change after Riordan told him the Grey Wardens wanted him to take the throne if he could. Earlier on, it had just been a possibility, something he knew Alistair had hoped the Grey Wardens would say no to, and be relieved of that duty. But instead, the Wardens had made it a duty not only to Ferelden, but to the Grey Wardens as well. Knowing how Alistair felt about the Wardens—something that had once made them come to blows—it was the addition of the Grey Warden orders that now drove Alistair. Drove him forward and drove him down, the weight of what was coming already settling on his shoulders. And it wasn't even the journey to the throne that bothered Alistair, despite what he'd just said. That, to him, was the easy part. The hard part would be having to be king after the battles were over.

He called him on it. "That's not the part you're afraid of."

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"The whole part about defeating the Blight? The part about raising the Bannorn and somehow overthrowing Loghain? You aren't afraid of that part. You're afraid of the whole bit where you're going to have to rule over a whole country."

His brother turned around so sharply that his hood fell off. "Have you ever had to contemplate ruling an entire nation for the rest of your life?"

"No."

"Then shut up."

Even though Alistair's normally light brown eyes had darkened with anger, Malcolm kept going. "It even bothers you to carry Maric's sword. When you first held it, you acted like the thing would bite you or something. Sure, it's the sword of Maric the Savior, but you don't just have to live up to that. You'll be able to—"

"If you don't shut up I will run our father's sword through you." Alistair removed his right hand from the reins and let it move towards the grip of said sword.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "I was saying that you could top the whole 'saving Ferelden from the terrible horrible Orlesians' by 'saving Ferelden from the terrible horrible Blight,' which, come to think of it, was what Cailan was trying—"

"I said shut up. I'm not joking. Watch me draw this sword—"

Then the blue runes on Maric's, now Alistair's, sword started to glow, gaining intensity with every second. The tug of the taint came straight after and their argument halted. Both of them shouted darkspawn and the party came to a halt in the middle of the muddy trail. They hurriedly dismounted, going for weapons as they leapt off their horses.

The attack came from both sides, hurlocks, genlocks, and somewhere, an emissary lobbing fire. Because apparently the mages—human, darkspawn, elven, or otherwise—couldn't help but use only fire and never, ever anything to do with cold. Malcolm searched for signs of the emissary, easily the most dangerous of their opponents. He saw it near the back of their line, tucked away near a rock where it could roll to cover once it was discovered. Malcolm spun and told Alistair to smite it, right as he made eye contact with the damn thing. A white glow appeared between the emissary's hands and Malcolm could see energy gathering within that glow, and suddenly, Malcolm hung in the air, crushed by an unseen force that made him twitch and writhe in pain. Yes, being run through with a sword sounded a lot better right now.

"Alistair. Smite. Emissary."

His brother finished a quick parry and riposte into the midsection of a hurlock. "Emissary? Where?" Then he noticed Malcolm's predicament. "Oh, that looks painful."

"Hate. You. Behind. Rock."

"Which rock?"

It wasn't as if he could point it out. He was lucky he could speak at all. If he got out of this spell, he was going to kill Alistair and it would be entirely justified.

Alistair finally caught sight of the emissary, opened his arms, and cast the holy smite on the offending darkspawn. Leliana followed it up with a couple well-placed arrows and finished it off. The spell dropped Malcolm first into the side of his horse, smacking his head on the Highever shield on the way down, and then into a heap in the mud churned up by the hooves of their nervous horses. It squelched underneath his body, the water seeping into his armor, into his clothing and even his smallclothes. But his body was too wrung out to move. He didn't even care. Sure, the mud was cold and wet and nasty but it least it didn't _hurt_.

As an added bonus, he wasn't on fire.

He opened one eye to survey the area, and found he saw a lot of feet. None of them were darkspawn feet, and the tug had gone away, so the darkspawn were taken care of.

"You stupid templar, why didn't you cleanse the area?" Morrigan snapped at Alistair as she ran over to where Malcolm remained in the mud.

Alistair blinked at her. "What?"

Morrigan's hand filled with a crackling ball of purple energy and Malcolm felt gleeful that she wasn't angry with him for once. "Your _brother_ was hanging in the air next to you being wracked with pain from a crushing prison spell and you just let it happen. You had the power to stop it. You might as well just have run him through like you threatened to. It would have hurt less."

"He told me to smite the emissary!"

A rejuvenation spell enveloped Malcolm and brought some energy back into his body. Enough energy to stand up from the mud. Except that when he stood, it took most of the mud with him. He looked down. He hadn't been this muddy since he was a six-year-old boy who spattered mud all over Delilah Howe's pretty new dress. The memory made him chuckle and he closed his eyes again. Delilah had gone beet-red angry and chased him all over the castle. He'd managed to evade her, but in doing so, had bowled over people and broken things in his mad dash. Eventually, Bryce had caught him by the back of his shirt as he ran by him in the main hall. Under Arl Howe's watchful eye, his father had soundly scolded him for ruining Delilah's new dress. But after Howe had excused himself, Bryce had taken it all back and they'd laughed themselves silly.

Good times.

He opened his eyes again, half smile on his face and a laugh still in his throat, to find Wynne studying him intensely. "You look like you might have a concussion," she said, more to herself than him, as if trying to diagnose him. "Or you might be in shock. Did you hit your head when you were released from the spell?"

Malcolm's mouth remained in a crooked smile. "I just remembered the last time I was covered in mud like this. It was pretty funny, actually. Got Arl Howe and his daughter spitting mad. We were six and I got mud on her dress because I decided I wanted to go sliding through the mud and she'd just walked into the courtyard and the mud just sailed so far! And then she started chasing me and I ran, and since I knew the castle better I stayed ahead of her, but I tracked mud everywhere, you could see all my little footsteps, and I ended up—"

Morrigan gently grasped his chin and tilted his head downward to look in his eyes. "Something is clearly wrong with him."

He frowned. "When did you stop yelling at Alistair? You were just standing over there, I saw you. And now you're here."

Alistair pointed toward Malcolm's horse. "I think he hit his head on the Highever shield he has lashed to his horse. There might be some irony in that, I believe."

"Are his pupils different sizes?" Wynne asked.

Morrigan peered more closely at his eyes. "Yes, they appear to be." She frowned at him. "And stop smiling, 'tis most unnerving when you are addled so."

It was Wynne's turn to frown. "That's a concussion then." She turned to Alistair. "Are there any more darkspawn or do you think it's safe to make camp for the night?"

Alistair shrugged. "We can make camp. It was a small scouting party. We aren't anywhere near the horde right now. Honestly, I'm surprised we saw any darkspawn this far into the Frostbacks." He looked over at Zevran. "Can you find us a safe spot?"

Zevran nodded and dashed into the forest beyond. He returned in less than five minutes, motioning for them to follow him. They did so, and he led them to a flat area next to a small stream where they could theoretically wash the mud off themselves. But if it didn't stop raining, it wouldn't make much difference. Malcolm, after receiving glares from each mage when he didn't cooperate, allowed himself to be guided towards a fire hastily made by Alistair and Zevran. The least-damp nearby log they could find was rolled over toward the fire and Malcolm found himself sitting on it. He assumed he'd been told to do so and obeyed, but he couldn't quite remember. He did remember that he and Alistair had been talking about offering the Joining to any of their companions and having them become Grey Wardens. And since everyone had just killed a darkspawn, there was fresh darkspawn blood to be had.

Then again, he also remembered not wanting to offer the Joining either, since it tended to end in death. Quick or slow. Death all the way. "Alistair," he said. When his brother didn't respond, he said it again.

Alistair didn't look over from where he was attempting to set up his tent in the wet undergrowth, but, obviously exasperated, he asked, "What?"

"We just killed darkspawn. Are there any vials?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, vials. To collect—"

Wynne clamped a hand over his mouth. "Young man, you need to stop talking right now. You are not to say another word until you've been healed."

He narrowed his eyes and contemplated biting her hand. Then he thought better of it. She could probably hurt him in as many ways as Morrigan could, but just wasn't as in-your-face about it. Yes, old and wise and tricky. Satisfied that Malcolm would keep his mouth shut, Wynne removed her hand and started explaining something healing related to Morrigan, and Malcolm's thinking got muddled. It would probably make his head hurt more, trying to understand mage stuff, anyway. He'd asked Morrigan about how she shapeshifted once and she'd started talking about knowing an animal's soul and it all kind of went straight over his head. It wasn't that he didn't want to understand. He really did. He wanted to know everything he could about her so he could _understand_ her, and shapeshifting was a part of that. Some parts of it felt so beyond him, that it wasn't a form or action that could really be taught. How do you come to know an animal's soul? He supposed he should ask her and not himself, since she would have the actual answer. "Morri—"

Wynne held up a finger. "One word. One word and I will set you on fire like that farmer's son I set on fire so very long ago."

His eyebrows raised. _Wynne_ set someone on fire? Now he desperately wanted to ask.

Alistair abandoned his efforts with his tent. "You set someone on fire? Now, Morrigan, I can see her doing that. But you?"

"I am willing to venture that the boy deserved what he got," Morrigan said, placing a hand on each of Malcolm's temples, and then asking Wynne, "Like this?"

Wynne nodded. "Yes, like that. And then do what I told you before."

Morrigan closed her eyes and a warmth pulsed through Malcolm's head, and suddenly, his head no longer felt fuzzy. Except he hadn't really noticed it was fuzzy until it, well, wasn't. Interesting how concussions worked, then. "Hey, I think it worked," he said.

Both mages checked his eyes. "Yes. Nicely done, Morrigan," Wynne said.

If Malcolm didn't know better, he'd say Morrigan looked a bit proud of herself.

Wynne nodded. "And that boy did deserve it. He was the eldest son of the woman who took me in. I don't think he ever liked me. I didn't have a family. I never knew my real parents. My earliest memory was of hiding in a hay loft on a farm, trying to keep warm. I was found, and the farmer's wife was kind enough not to send me away. But they had children of their own and I was never made to feel welcome. He was always calling me a stray and throwing anything he could to get his hands on at me. And I don't know how it happened, but one day, he just found his hair on fire. Fortunately, there was a large trough nearby."

"Serves him right," Alistair said. "It's never wise to cross mages, even if you can smite them." He frowned. "Or especially if you can smite them. I always get that one mixed up."

"Malcolm will need to stay away for the next two hours just to make sure he doesn't fall asleep, and then stay unconscious," Wynne told them.

Malcolm glanced forlornly at his bedroll. "But it looks so warm and inviting in my nice dry little tent that Leliana so kindly set up for me."

Alistair gave him a pat on the head. "And in two hours you can go right in there and curl up and go to sleep."

The rest of the party cleaned off as best they could, Leliana volunteered to make dinner again, and Malcolm, not allowed to do anything, sat miserably huddled inside his cloak until he remembered he could just keep going through the coded papers to distract himself. He hadn't touched them since before they'd found Riordan, they just hadn't had time. And now he had the royal cipher, too, from Cailan's chest at Ostagar. He carefully scooted to the end of the log and fetched the papers out of his pack. Then he moved the cloak so the papers were under them and the firelight was still on them, and started reading again.

When he read it, he was shocked that he hadn't gone back to it sooner. Apparently the memory of all the dull stuff had stayed with him instead of the latest letter. The one from this Fiona to Duncan, mentioning King Maric. But not using the 'king' part, just the familiar Maric. Blast, he should've asked Riordan about this Fiona while he was around. And now who knew when and if they'd see the other Warden again. The letter was asking about Alistair, which made sense as Alistair was a Grey Warden, and how he was faring after his Joining.

Then Malcolm read the next sentence.

_And how is my other son Malcolm?_

He nearly yelped. _This_ was the warrior from the Anderfels both Eamon and Duncan had spoken of? Both of them had just _happened_ to leave out the fact that she was a Grey Warden? Other than that, he had no idea who this woman was. And then he realized that if Duncan was writing to her and if she to him, then she was still alive.

Of course Riordan was now somewhere in the depths of the Deep Roads and couldn't be cornered about who this Fiona person was. But there was someone in the camp who would know. He stood up suddenly, and after steadying himself because he shouldn't have stood up so quickly, strode over to where Wynne sat reading a book. "Wynne," he said quietly, because he sure didn't want Alistair to hear anything until he knew what was going on himself.

She looked up and frowned. "Yes? Is something wrong? You look a bit pale."

The letter shook in his hand even as he willed himself to stop. "Who is Fiona?"

The mage's eyes went from Malcolm's eyes to the paper and back to Malcolm. She pursed her lips then took him by the elbow to the edge of the camp, away from the others, but still far from Zevran's traps. "Why do you ask?"

He handed her the letter. "It's in the Grey Warden cipher, so unless you know it, you won't be able to read it. But I can tell you what it says."

She calmly handed the letter back to him. "I'm listening."

"It's from a Grey Warden at Weisshaupt named Fiona and addressed to Duncan. She asks about Alistair and how he fares after his Joining. Then she asks, and this is a direct quote, 'how is my son Malcolm?' So here I am starting to think that this whole 'warrior from the Anderfels' story is as much crap as the 'Alistair's mother was a scullery maid' story. Because I know—and Alistair knows—that we have the same mother."

Wynne sighed and suddenly looked very tired. "If I tell you... it would put everything in danger, Malcolm. Everything you and Alistair are working for to get Loghain off the throne could be gone in an instant if anyone found out. You had best burn that letter and any other letters like it. It is as dire a secret to the future of Ferelden as the true nature of the Joining is to the Grey Wardens. Ask yourself, is it truly a burden you wish to bear, knowing what you must do in the months to come? That you might have to lie in order to preserve Ferelden and Thedas from the Blight and themselves?"

That took him aback. Wynne telling him that if he knew this truth that he would have to lie. Of all the people he knew, Wynne was one of the last people he'd ever thought would tell him to lie. But he wanted to know. His natural mother could still be alive. He could know more than just the 'warrior from the Anderfels' line of crap that Eamon and Duncan had cooked up. "Yes, it is."

She nodded. "Your suspicions are correct. Fiona is your mother."

"And she's a Grey Warden?"

"Yes."

He cocked his head to the side. "What's so bad about that? I mean, it isn't fantastic, but it isn't a deal-breaker, not with the Bannorn, at least when compared to Loghain."

Wynne sighed again and pain plagued her grey eyes. "That isn't all. She is also a mage. And Orlesian."

Malcolm was willing to concede the danger to their plans aspect of this knowledge. "Okay, now we're creeping into the Bannorn-freaking-out territory."

She held up a finger. "I'm not done."

He waited, wondering what else could be added to the list of things to entirely tweak out the Bannorn if they ever found out at the Landsmeet should they decide to call Loghain out there.

"And an elf."

Malcolm gaped, lucky that he hadn't shouted at her in his disbelief. That would've brought people running, followed by an awkward 'no, I totally didn't shout at Wynne, I don't know what you're talking about.' Without shouting and as calmly as he could, he said, "But, I don't... we don't have... our ears are... really?"

"Really. The children of elves and humans are human. That's why the elves tend to marry other elves. Otherwise, they would die out. I take it you see my point? Why, if you are asked by anyone about who your mother really is, that you must lie? The civil war would never end. Or it would end with Loghain's reign continuing until the Blight swallowed up Ferelden as it goes on to consume all of Thedas. Warrior from the Anderfels works much better than scullery maid, if you're pushed on the issue. Maric wasn't known for dalliances and a lot of people had trouble with the maid story. But someone Maric would have met abroad, in the Anderfels? It's possible. It was a long trip to Weisshaupt for that formal apology. It even has a spot of truth to it—Fiona is now from the Anderfels since her reassignment years and years ago to the Grey Warden headquarters. And while she is a mage, she is very much a warrior. I saw her fight, long ago."

"You knew her, then, and not just of her?"

Wynne smiled warmly. "Not nearly so well as I knew Duncan. I met Fiona twice. Once before she and Duncan and the rest of their small group of Grey Wardens went into the Deep Roads with King Maric, and then once after they came back and there was a huge uproar at Kinloch Hold. She was fiery, determined, outspoken. And I can tell you this much—Maric and Fiona did love one another. That I am sure of. But the King of Ferelden and a lovely elf who happened to be Orlesian, a mage, and a Grey Warden? It only led to a lot of heartache and sadness." She patted him on the arm. "And you and Alistair."

Malcolm eyes flicked toward the forest, looking away, blinking what he hoped were raindrops out of his eyes. "So she's alive."

"In that she lives and breathes, yes. In Weisshaupt. Very far away."

He turned to face Wynne and placed his hands on her shoulders. "But she's _alive_."

Wynne's eyes were kind, but firm as she regarded him. "Alive, yes. But she cannot be part of your life and you know the reasons why. Judging from that letter, and there must be more, she cares about you and Alistair and your lives. And I know that Duncan was her contact, he was the one she and Maric had asked to check in on both you boys. He told me that, long ago, after Maric had told him I could be trusted. She's the one who requested Duncan recruit Alistair away from the Chantry if Alistair possessed the skills to be a Grey Warden. I'm certain you can understand why—what mage would want to see their child become a templar?"

It made sense. No mage would, no matter how much they might say they were devout Andrastians. He nodded listlessly, recognizing that even though his natural mother was alive, she was as dead as he'd assumed she was before he knew the truth. "What about me? Did she ask I be recruited?"

"No. She wanted you to be left with the Couslands. She wanted you not to be told until your majority, if ever, and to be raised as their son, as you were raised. It was the life that Alistair was supposed to have with Arl Eamon but didn't because of Arlessa Isolde. The life that King Maric couldn't have because he was first the heir to the throne and then the King. And the life Fiona couldn't have because she was both mage and elf." Wynne smiled again and this time there was a sadness to it. "And you had it."

He felt some tears escape and wash down his cheeks with the rain. "Until Arl Howe."

"Yes. He took that away from you. And Duncan saved your life and brought you into the family you and Alistair were technically born into—the Grey Wardens. It's as much your heritage as the Theirin bloodline. And that haunts you as well. What Maric didn't want either of you to have to go through, you now must, because of the actions of Maric's best friend, Loghain. The irony of that is... appalling."

Malcolm looked back from the forest and at Wynne. There were some tears in her eyes as well. "Thank you for telling me."

"I'm not sure if you should be thanking me or cursing me. But you are welcome for the truth. And I am sorry you must bear the burden of carrying it." Wynne gave him a final squeeze on the arm and went back to her tent.

He stood at the forest's edge for a little longer, staring down at the letter, realizing that it was his natural mother's handwriting. The only parent he had left alive, it was something of hers. And yet, to save Ferelden, and to an extent, Thedas, he had to do what must be done. With a determined step, he walked back into the camp and to the fire. He dropped the letter into it and it drifted slowly into the flames, the edges curling inward as they burned before it burst into flame and disintegrated. The wind from the rainstorm picked up, carrying ashes and smoke from the fire and into the trees.

More ashes of the dead carried away on the cold wind.


	24. Chapter 24

"The one who repents, who has faith,

Unshaken by the darkness of the world,

She shall know true peace."

—_Canticle of Transfigurations 10:1_

**Chapter 24**

**Alistair**

Overnight, the rain had tapered, but what precipitation remained had turned over to snow. Considering the mountains were called the Frostbacks, Alistair figured he couldn't argue much. Complain, yes, argue, no. What rankled him at the moment was whatever conversation Malcolm had carried on with Wynne last night that had left, and he was fairly certain about it, both of them in tears. Not full-out wailing tears, of course, but there were tears. Then, his forced two hours of staying awake over, Malcolm had crawled into his tent and gone to sleep, leaving Alistair wondering what had happened.

And what he'd burned in the fire.

But today they hadn't the time for the sort of arguments, soul-searching, or serious questioning that could result in fistfights. If the information they'd gotten from Weylon's impostor had been correct, they were nearing the village that wasn't on a single proper map that Alistair had ever seen. And he'd seen a lot of maps. The Chantry just loved maps. They were wonderful in helping to locate apostates, along with phylacteries and overzealous templars. As Alistair had gotten to know Wynne, and even Morrigan, to some extent, he'd realized that he would have made a horrible templar. Well, at least by templar standards. The mages might've liked him.

He sighed as they continued to trudge up the mountainside to this remote, unheard-of town and Malcolm reminded him, loudly and often, that it had been Alistair's brilliant idea.

Malcolm stepped up beside him, the first time he'd been within hitting distance of his brother all day. "Alistair."

Alistair threw his hood off and fixed a harsh glare on Malcolm. "I know. This was my choice. This was my brilliant, blasted idea for us to come up here into the coldest mountains ever in the midst of a snowstorm, to find a village that probably doesn't exist, and to find an Urn of Sacred Ashes at the behest of a woman neither of us can stand. I _know_. You can stop telling me that."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't going to mention anything about that, actually."

"Is that so?"

"Yes." Malcolm looked away nervously, blinking as snowflakes caught in his eyelashes. "I wanted to ask you if you'd teach me how to smite people." Then he quickly corrected himself. "I mean mages."

"Problems with Morrigan?"

Malcolm's blue eyes went wide. "What? No, no! I meant emissaries." He quickly looked back to see if Morrigan had heard and placed a hand on Alistair's shoulder. "Are you trying to get me _killed_?"

"Hmm. You know, I'm not sure that she would kill you. Maim you, hurt you, cause you untold amounts of pain, but, I don't think she'd kill you. She's awfully protective of you if you haven't noticed." And if he were truly honest with himself, Morrigan was protective of their entire group. Sure, she was a bitch, especially to him, but if someone else dared be bitchy to him, he suspected she'd do something nasty. And then be more of a bitch to him later to make up for being nice. Keeping the balance and all that. Yet, he still couldn't bring himself to like Morrigan. He knew his brother saw something in her, and he could tell it wasn't some sort of dalliance or anything. And he could even tell from looks Morrigan would give her brother when she thought no one could see her. However any of them might not admit it, there seemed to be a deep relationship forming between his brother and the witch.

He wasn't sure if he was _more_ bothered than if it had been just a physical thing that would mean nothing in the end. But, if nothing for Malcolm's sake, he tolerated Morrigan. And he'd even admitted to himself that while she was certainly an apostate, thus far she'd yet to prove a maleficar. A redeeming quality after all. Plus, Wynne, the wisest person he knew, saw something good in her. Surprising, that.

As Alistair mused, Malcolm had continued with his explanation. "The reason I'm asking is because the other day I saw that emissary first and I was within range and if I had the ability, I could've taken care of him. You know, _before_ I was put in that horribly painful crushing prison whatever thing, and then dropped on my head."

Alistair sighed and kept walking upward as he considered the request. He'd sworn to the Grand Cleric before he'd left with Duncan that he wouldn't reveal templar secrets outside the Chantry. Yet, Malcolm had a point. They could have avoided the injury yesterday if Malcolm also had the abilities he had. Alistair was certain his brother could learn the abilities rather quickly and perhaps easily if he listened closely. It would help them fight the darkspawn and there was a Blight on the land. And as Grey Wardens, they were supposed to do whatever it took. Oh, the Grand Cleric could take a flying leap for all he cared. "Sure, I'll teach you. It'll stop Morrigan from yelling at me again about that, at least. Whenever we've got some downtime to work on it, I'll show you how to smite and maybe how to cleanse an area of spells."

Malcolm stopped and stared at him. Squinting through the blowing snow, Alistair didn't notice at first and got quite a few steps ahead before he turned around. "Are you coming?"

"You said yes?"

"You thought I'd say no?"

Malcolm absently brushed some of the snow off his head. "Well... yes."

"Never underestimate the drive to be yelled at less by mages. I believe I mentioned something about that the first time you met me at Ostagar. If you recall, I'd just been yelled at by a mage. And considering I've been yelled at by both mages who travel with us, I've got quite a record going. I believe I've been yelled at, at least once, by every mage I've ever met." Alistair glanced down the slope at his brother, who still looked at him curiously. Then Malcolm shrugged and continued up the mountain.

Wynne brushed by, her head buried in her hood with only her nose showing. "I haven't yelled at you."

"Oh, don't give me that. You have with your _eyes_. I'd have to be blind not to notice. I think you even agreed with Morrigan the other day about not cleansing the area when he was in stuck in that spell." He wiped the collecting snow off his armor as best he could.

For some reason, his comment made Wynne stop and look at him. "Well, perhaps a little. Then I decided you were probably just dealing with several things at once. No permanent harm done. Except that he almost exposed one of the secrets about the Joining."

"Thanks for stopping him. I was distracted and didn't quite catch on to what he was saying until it would've been too late and you managed to silence him. That would've been awkward, having to say 'pretend you didn't hear that!' and everything." He sighed, wondering if it would be okay to ask for her advice, and then remembered that Riordan had said Wynne would be a good person to go to for advice, even if it involved Grey Warden matters. "What do you think about it, anyway? Should we offer it to everyone?"

She thought over her answer for a moment. "Riordan did say that any of your companions would be suitable recruits if they so chose, not including me, of course. I am too old and weary to attempt something requiring that much strength."

Alistair looked up the slope again at the rest of the group. Zevran had taken the lead to break the trail as he was the one who was least apt to lead them off said trail. "Morrigan would say no, I can tell you that right now. Leliana... her, I don't know, I really don't. She's a mystery. Zevran, though. He might. He's hiding from the Crows, after all, and while he's traveling with the Grey Wardens now, all two of us, the order can't guarantee his safety forever, not without something in return. Well, that would be the pragmatic approach to it anyway."

"That's how Duncan and Riordan would view it. In fact, they both would have asked him already and if he said no, they would have conscripted him."

"Seriously? There's a lot of conscription going around. It's become like a disease or something."

Wynne moved her hood enough so that he could see her eyes. "This is a dark time. People must do what needs to be done for Ferelden and Thedas to survive. The Blight is no time to muck about. There are many hard decisions that come with being a Grey Warden, especially a Warden in charge of recruiting. Think of Malcolm. Duncan had been friends with Bryce Cousland for years. He had respected Teyrn Cousland's wishes that Malcolm not be recruited when he had other choices. But after Arl Howe's attack, he was left with no choice. There was a Blight, and there was a young man who had the ability in both martial skill and the chance of surviving the Joining, still alive. And even though that young man didn't want to join the Grey Wardens, he took him anyway. There were many ways he could have gone about it, both before and after that massacre at Highever. But in the end, the Grey Wardens needed Malcolm, so he did what he had to. As you must do. But fear not, I don't think you will have to conscript Zevran. He is a young man who needs a mission, and his skills are well-suited for the Grey Wardens. Much the same as Malcolm was. You even saved Zevran's life as Malcolm had his saved."

"I don't think Malcolm tried to kill Duncan, though, I might've heard about that." Alistair frowned. "You know, if there hadn't been a Blight, I never would have met him."

"Malcolm? From what I understand, no. Most likely not."

His brother now stood at the top of the trail, speaking with Zevran in what seemed to be a rather animated discussion. Enough so that Morrigan and Leliana were off to the side, trying to carry on their own conversation, but casting occasional looks in Malcolm and Zevran's direction. His brother had changed a lot since he'd first met him. The person he'd met at Ostagar had been angry and resentful, looking to slip the responsibility of the Grey Wardens and the Blight. Right after Ostagar, it had seemed like Malcolm had seized onto both the responsibilities of Grey Warden and bastard prince, only to lose sight of it at Kinloch Hold. If Riordan hadn't helped Malcolm regain his focus, Alistair wasn't sure he would've been able to. He just didn't have that sort of perspective when it came to Duncan, couldn't fathom being as angry at him as Malcolm had gotten. Intellectually, after watching and listening to Malcolm and Riordan and Wynne, he understood. It did make sense. But on an instinctual level, he couldn't grasp it.

It didn't make him mad at his brother. It had at Ostagar, though. When Malcolm had said he didn't know how he thought of Duncan and Alistair had seen the resentment and fury in his eyes, he'd known exactly how Malcolm thought of him. And right then, he'd nearly hit him for it. He'd wanted to reach out and take him by the chestpiece of his armor and give him a good shake, tell him that he was talking badly of the man who'd saved his life. Looking back, he was certainly glad he hadn't done it, because he would've been in the wrong. Apparently he'd also grown up since Ostagar himself.

Maker, he felt ancient whenever thought about the past. "I feel old, Wynne," he said.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "And what exactly are you implying, Alistair?"

Then, and much too late, he realized he'd said that to the oldest person in the group. Yes, Alistair, entirely princely behavior there, shoving your foot in your mouth like that. "What? Nothing! I just thought..." He fell silent, unable to figure out just what he'd been thinking.

Wynne crossed her arms. "You just thought I might be an expert at feeling old and could share some sage advice?"

Yes, insert foot into mouth, chew vigorously. "I just mean that I feel like a different person from who I was when I first met my brother. Before Ostagar and losing everything. I'd believed Loghain would have followed the strategy he'd devised, smashing the darkspawn from the flank and giving us the victory. That we'd win." How very much different it would be were it so. They would be at the warm compound in Denerim, probably. Out of the snow, planning the strike against the darkspawn as they worked with the other Wardens. He was sure Malcolm would have yelled at Duncan at some point, loudly enough for every other Warden to hear. And they all would've smiled to themselves a bit, because conscripts had yelled at Duncan like _that_ for years, or so Alistair was told. He'd only heard a conscript go off on Duncan once in his six months at Denerim's compound.

"I did, too," Wynne said quietly. "We were all a little bit younger before the battle."

He couldn't help the smirk that played on his lips and said, "Well, not you. You've always been old."

She swatted him on the arm. "With lip like that, son, you'll be lucky if you live to be half my age." With that, she turned and continued up the mountain to where the others waited.

Alistair followed, noting that the conversation between Zevran and Malcolm wasn't over and seemed even more intense than it had when he'd last looked.

"You're an idiot," Malcolm said, throwing his hands in his air in frustration.

Zevran's jaw flexed. "You said it was my choice, did you not? And I have made my choice. I cannot expect the Grey Wardens to shelter me from the Crows while I offer them no oath of loyalty to them in return. Thus, I will take this Joining you spoke of and become as you are. A Grey Warden."

Malcolm looked helplessly at Alistair, as if he expected him to talk sense into his friend.

Alistair set his face to be as serious as he could. "It's his choice and he has made it. We need Grey Wardens, Malcolm. This is a Blight. We must do what needs to be done and part of that is accepting decisions we may not like." For the first time, Alistair truly felt like he was the senior Warden between the two of them. It was hard to see the slight betrayal in Malcolm's eyes. He'd expected his elder brother to help save his friend. But his elder brother had remembered they were trying to save Thedas and that was more important than any of their friends. Because, in the end, that was what would save them all.

How people like Duncan and Riordan had dealt with this sort of thing day in and day out was beyond him. Malcolm had just gotten over being angry at him and now he was back at it. He hoped it would blow over. Earlier he'd been more amenable to the others taking the Joining, maybe he'd remember that soon.

Maker, he hoped this wasn't what being a king would be like, too.

"Fine. Let's just go," Malcolm said, turning away from the rest of them and walking toward what looked to be the village they'd been seeking out. At least, Alistair couldn't imagine stumbling into another village in this area, no more than he'd ever thought they'd stumble onto even one.

The rest of them followed. A different sort of silence and lack of life that had been Lothering kept the village eerily still. There was no dark touch of the taint here, but there was something else, something else nearly as creepy that he couldn't identify. There weren't any people about and it unsettled all of them. Each person slowly shifted from being hunched inside their cloaks to having arms loose and ready to grab a weapon at a moment's notice. The snow swirled around them as they searched for signs of people and found none. Leliana went up to what seemed to be an abandoned house. Out of curiosity, the bard tried the door and it swung open without so much as a creak.

They piled inside, wanting to find someone alive and wanting to get out of the snow. But the inside was clearly as abandoned as it had looked on the outside. No one lived here, but... on the far side of the small living room, he noticed an altar covered with blood that had yet to fully congeal. It had run like hot wax down the sides of the dark wood of the altar and no one had cleaned it up. "Used for food preparation, perhaps?" he suggested, attempting to add some levity.

Malcolm looked sidelong at him. "Does meat bleed that much?"

Alistair shrugged. "I'm just trying to be optimistic. The other explanation is slightly more disturbing." That no one lived here, but they apparently popped by to occasionally sacrifice... something... to...someone? He shuddered. Yes, definitely disturbing.

"This village is not quite what it seems, is it?" Wynne muttered.

Alistair suspected she meant that comment just for herself, but he answered anyway. He couldn't stand the silence that would remain if he didn't. "If you mean creepy ghost town with random, bloody altars to gods I'm not even aware of, then it actually does seem to be what it seems." He took another glance around the house and decided he'd much rather be in the snow. "I'll be outside."

He hadn't been out for very long when the others followed, their steps cautious, hesitant, expectant. It would be a lot less nerve wracking if whatever it was would attack them. Except nothing did besides their own wary thoughts. They followed a path that continued up the slope of the mountain, this one wide enough for a wagon, though from the size of the village and the lack of wide enough paths up most of the mountain, he had no idea why they'd need a path this large. Oh, well. At least it allowed them to travel in a more tactically solid formation than single-file or by twos. Leliana and Zevran checked the doors of every house they passed to see if they were like the first. From the looks on their faces after peeking inside, it seemed they were.

It made him think of Lothering again, at finding those heads lined up on the Chantry's altar. He had nearly vomited. At first he'd been ashamed at his reaction, until Riordan had told them it was normal. Even beneath the stony visage of a Grey Warden veteran facing the Blight, he'd seen his reaction, and Malcolm's reaction, just beneath it. Another moment of humanity. No matter how much they controlled what they showed, they remained human. The Wardens might have to burn entire tainted villages, kill tainted inhabitants, but it always pained them. And always cost a little bit of their soul. Another personal sacrifice, even as they had to sacrifice others.

But it seemed there were other, and quite suspicious, sacrifices going on in this particular town. Ahead, he thought he heard the Chant of Light. Or some sort of chanting, though he wasn't sure what else it could be. The rhythm was familiar. "I think the entire village is in that Chantry," he said, narrowing his eyes at it. "Let's pay them a visit."

"I'm sure they'll welcome us with open arms. And maybe knives," Malcolm said.

Alistair smiled a little. "Then it will be a familiar welcome. Oh, and let us know that we're on the right path. It's never the right path for us unless it includes the threat of our deaths, you know."

Malcolm rolled his eyes and carefully opened the Chantry door. As they stepped inside, the chanting immediately stopped. Were those Tevinter mage robes on the bearded man who seemed to be leading the chant? The man in question glared at them for a moment before he changed his expression to something more friendly. But Alistair had already noticed the man's true feelings. Somehow, he wasn't surprised. Next, the knives would come out, he was sure of it. As the leader moved closer, Alistair felt an aura of powerful magic emanating from the man. Glances exchanged with the others confirmed it. Suddenly, Alistair wished Malcolm was already trained as a templar. He suspected that would come in handy right about now.

"Ah, welcome," said the man in measured tones. "My name is Eirik. I heard we had visitors wandering about the village. I trust you've enjoyed your time in Haven so far?"

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Your people aren't very welcoming."

Eirik's countenance changed to the glare he'd given them before. "What sort of welcome do you expect when you break into our homes uninvited?" He turned to the others briefly, gesturing toward the newcomers. "You see? This is why we do not like visitors. They are not like us. They will do us harm if we let them."

"You realize we didn't actually break into your homes? That your doors were wide open?" He didn't say that he would've had Leliana or Zevran pick the doors if they had been locked.

Eirik spun to face him. "And now you try to shift the blame. We don't owe you any explanation for our actions. We have a secured duty. Failure to protect her would be a greater sin. All will be forgiven."

It seemed these people had read a different Chant of Light than he had. Then he had no time to contemplate it, for the citizens had found weapons awfully quickly and were attacking them. In the small confines, it immediately put Alistair within range to smite the mage before he could do any damage. He quickly did so, lest anyone end up on fire or anything else painful. Malcolm ran to the downed mage to finish the job Alistair had started, while Alistair had to dodge an attack from a two-handed battleaxe determined to remove his head from his body.

From behind him, he heard a thud, a cry of pain, and then another thud. He whirled around to see Leliana stumbling backward, an arrow in her upper shoulder and another just below it. A third struck her leg, sending her to the floor. Zevran leapt into the shadows to deal with the archer that had flanked them. Before he could see to the bard, Alistair heard a grunt of another attacker behind him.

He spun around to see the man take a giant swing at him with the battleaxe again. Alistair ducked and cut through the knees of the axe-bearer before stabbing him through the chest. One twist and the man was thoroughly dead. Another unseen attacker caught him in the side with a nastily spiked mace before he could recover. Ignoring the pain, he rolled away to the right, removing himself from the spikes' grip. The man started to move toward Alistair, but a sword exploded from his chest, courtesy of Malcolm, and he dropped to the ground instead.

The mace-wielder the last to fall, the inhabitants of the Chantry lay dead.

Surveying the bodies spread on the floor around them, Zevran said, "Just once I'd like to walk into one of these places and discover a lively dance, or a drinking festival. Or an orgy. But alas, no."

Alistair chuckled and pain lanced through him, bringing an immediate and breathless halt to his amusement. His hand moved toward the injury and blood quickly covered his fingers and the grip of his sword. He groaned and tried to stand anyway, needing to reach Leliana, who lay worryingly still. But he'd been weakened by the blood loss and he stumbled and fell, dropping his sword and shield as he went down. The clanging caught the attention of the rest of the group. Wynne knelt next to him but he waved her off. "Leliana's over in the corner, she took three arrows. I'm not even sure if she's conscious."

With a quick nod, Wynne was back on her feet and rushing to the bard. Alistair lay back on the cold floor, closing his eyes to dispel the dizziness. When he opened them, Morrigan was at his side. Her hands took his to move them and he jumped a little at the contact, unable to keep the fear from showing in his eyes.

The witch frowned at him. "You may not be my favorite person, Alistair, but I have no wish to see you dead. Wynne may be some time tending to your bard. She does not seem to be faring well. Allow me to help you before all of your blood ends up on the floor beneath us."

He hesitated, and then saw in Morrigan's amber eyes that she truly meant no harm. Was that even _caring _he saw there? It made sense, in a way. If she truly felt anything for Malcolm, she would feel compelled to at least care for her love's brother's well-being. Well, if she loved his brother, which he was starting to believe might be true. He'd have to talk with Wynne about that, she'd know. She was wise like that. With a nod, he removed his hands from his wound, allowing Morrigan to place her own there. A warmth emanated from them, suffusing his body, and he could feel the cracked ribs knitting back together, the torn flesh around them repairing itself and closing the wound. The pain drifted away and he felt a hundred times better than he had before.

She removed her hands. "How fare you now?"

He pushed himself up on his elbows, noting the dizziness had gone as well. "Better," he said, and looked into her eyes again. "Thank you."

Discomfort obvious at his gratitude, she nodded once and walked away. He finished standing up, gathering his sword and shield as he did. Then he found where Wynne and Leliana were and started that way, but a strong hand on his shoulder stopped him. "You have to give Wynne space to work," Malcolm said. "She'll be okay. I don't think the arrows hit any critical spots. It looks worse than it is. At least, that's what Morrigan said after she got a second look at Leliana."

"You trust her?"

"She just healed you, didn't she? That should give you an indication of how she feels about our group. You might not like her personally, but I expected better of you by now."

Malcolm was right and Alistair knew it. Known it before he'd spoken, in fact. "I'm sorry. It was reflexive. I've already realized that while she might be bitchy to me, she acts as if she's the only person allowed to do so, and if someone else treats me like that, or dares to hurt me, she'll let them know how displeased she is."

"Glad you figured that out," Malcolm replied, following Alistair's gaze towards Wynne and Leliana.

Zevran and Morrigan joined the two brothers, having finished a search of the room, and Zevran held a medallion of some kind in his hand. "This looks to be important, no?"

Alistair squinted at it, trying to distract himself from Leliana's plight. "It looks complicated."

"Thus important. Also, I found a hidden doorway. We must continue through there once our bard has been healed." He took a breath, and then said, "I am sorry for not seeing that archer sooner. I will have to apologize to Leliana as well. I should have been able to catch him before he fired."

"No need to apologize. It was a battle. We can't all see everything and I don't hold anyone responsible for her injury, except the man who caused it, whom you already killed. I think that makes you even."

Zevran frowned. "I suppose."

Movement came from Leliana as she slowly sat up. Wynne glanced at the others and motioned them over. "She will be fine. I want her to stay back are we to face any further combat, at least for the next few hours as she recovers her energy."

"You hear that?" Alistair said, a smile appearing. "No more getting stabbed or shot by arrows."

The bard laughed and extended her hand, an unspoken request. Alistair obliged and helped her up. She wobbled for a moment before gaining her balance, a process that she managed more quickly than Alistair had, even though her injuries were more severe. Must be part of that whole graceful rogue thing. He'd seen Zevran be knocked down, pick himself up, and balance himself just as easily. It also explained how Duncan had been so quick in combat. Now that Alistair knew the man's initial training had been in finesse and dexterity instead of relying on strength as a warrior, it was no longer a mystery. He idly wondered why Duncan had switched to become much more warrior-like compared to his early days.

Not like he could ask him anymore, though. He sighed, knowing they had to continue exploring, remembering some of Duncan's words. _We must press forward. Always, we must press forward._ "All right, Zevran, let's see this door you found."

Zevran went to one of the walls and triggered some sort of switch. Part of the wall slid away into a hollowed-out wall next to it, revealing a room beyond. Weapons drawn, they crept through the doorway to find themselves in a room filled with books and an older man with a rather large nose—and that was a lot coming from a Theirin—laying on the floor.

"Who are you?" the man asked in a weak-sounding voice. "They, they sent you to finish it?"

Leliana was the first to react. "Brother Genitivi?"

The man gave a slight nod as his brow furrowed in confusion. "You're... you're not one of them. Thank the Maker."

"Are you all right?" Alistair asked.

Genitivi scowled. "What do you think? Weeks of scant food and water. The torture. Oh, I've never felt better."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow, and then made to turn and walk away. "Well, then, I suppose you don't need us."

There was some nice, tough love right there from his brother. Nothing ambiguous about his true feelings about this quest at _all_.

"Wait!" Genitivi said loudly, raising a hand to stop Malcolm, and possibly the others, from leaving him to his fate. "The weeks I spent here have made me crotchety. I apologize. I do need your help. The leg's not doing so well, and I can't feel my foot."

Alistair looked sidelong at Wynne. "Do you have the energy to help him?"

She nodded. "Yes, I've mostly recovered now." Then she knelt at the Chantry brother's side, assessing the injuries. "I can set the leg and ease some of the pain, but he'll need a lot of rest in order to heal."

Genitivi scowled at her even though she'd just offered to help him. "I don't have time to rest now. I'm so close. The Urn is just up this mountain. If they hadn't stopped me, I would've had it weeks ago. Haven lies in the shadow of the mountain that holds the urn. There is an old temple there, built to protect it. The door is always locked, but I know what the key is. Eirik wears a medallion that opens the temple door."

The medallion dangled from Zevran's hand in front of Genitivi. "This medallion?" the elf asked.

"Yes!" Genitivi snatched the medallion from Zevran's hands with a speed none of them would have expected. "This is the key. Take me to the mountainside, and I will show you."

Alistair wanted to object, but he could see they wouldn't get that medallion back if they didn't use force, and he didn't want to cause more harm to the older man when he would cooperate otherwise. Wynne noted his decision before he could speak it, sighed greatly, and healed the man. Malcolm and Zevran helped Genitivi between them as they went back outside and continued on the mountain's ever-narrowing trail upward.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

**Alistair**

Their trip up to the next temple was slow-going, between Genitivi's near inability to walk and Leliana still recovering from her arrow wounds. But the time it took gave the bard the time she needed to regain most of the energy she had lost, so it wasn't all a waste. After a few hours, they arrived at the sealed entrance to a temple that no one would ever seen from the foothills of the Frostbacks. Genitivi manipulated the lock with the medallion and the doors swung open, beckoning the group inside.

They found a cavernous room that once must have been magnificent. Pillars soared to the arched ceiling above, but snow had caved into a few of the walls, and still continued to hug the etched stone floor. There were some books scattered about, and Alistair caught glimpses of bookshelves off in a few of the wings. Genitivi quickly excused himself to explore the shelves, claiming he could keep himself out of trouble. Knowing keeping the older man with them would slow them down too much, he left him there. They continued further into the temple, occasionally meeting resistance from people who must be related to the villagers. The words the villagers, no, cultists of some sort, Alistair corrected himself, spoke made less and less sense.

The people kept insisting that they were followers and protectors of Andraste. They mentioned nothing of the Ashes, but referred to Andraste as if she were alive. Which, the others knew, was patently untrue. Andraste had been betrayed by Maferath to the Tevinter Imperium, and she'd been burned at the stake as a result. What strange people to think she was alive. Did they read nothing of history?

As they trudged ever upward in a tunnel carved through the rock, a roar startled all of them. Then three large creatures that looked like drakes ran toward them, long teeth flashing, and behind them a small herd of dragonlings. _Dragonlings?_ What in Maker's name was going on here? After dealing with what were undeniably drakes and dragonlings once they got a closer look, Alistair asked, "Anyone have any idea just what is going on in this place?"

"I think I do," Leliana said quietly. "I read about this once, in the Chantry. I think these people are a dragon cult, people who worship a high dragon. What we saw in the village, with those bloody altars, they must have been sacrificing dragonlings and... drinking their blood. They believe it gives them power. It is part of a dragon cult's practices. And if this is truly a dragon cult, there must be a high dragon nearby."

"Could it be the archdemon?" Malcolm asked.

"No," Alistair answered. "We would be able to sense it. Besides, do you really think we'd just _stumble_ onto the archdemon?"

Malcolm turned to Alistair. "Knowing us? Yes. That would be our luck. We freed Riordan from Fort Drakon remarkably easily. I'm just waiting for this luck to bite us in the ass." He frowned up into the darkened tunnel ahead of them. "Running into a high dragon might be the ass-biting I've been expecting."

"With extra-large teeth," Zevran added.

Alistair sighed. "Come on. If it's a high dragon, she'll be breathing fire, and we all know Malcolm loves that sort of thing." The group laughed, needing that sort of break from the tension, even if at his brother's expense.

"I hate you all," Malcolm grumbled, and then continued up the passage, Morrigan lighting the way beside him with her staff.

The tunnel ended up connecting to another temple, where they ran into a man in heavy armor who carried himself as a leader. "Stop! You will go no further!" he shouted at them when he noted their entrance.

Alistair raised an eyebrow and calmly asked, "Oh, is that so? And who are you to stop us?"

"I am Father Kolgrim. And you, strangers, have defiled our temple. You have spilled the blood of the faithful and slaughtered our young. No more! You will tell me now, intruders, why you have done all this. Why have you come here?"

Alistair figured they really could've engaged in this sort of dialogue earlier. Before all those nasty deaths had taken place. "You know, your people could have just asked me that before they started attacking me and my friends, here. But if you must know now, we've come for the Urn of Sacred Ashes. If you would just let us continue on our way, we will gladly not kill anyone else."

Kolgrim laughed. "You did this all for an ancient relic? Know this, strangers, the Prophet Andraste has overcome death itself and has returned to Her faithful in a form more radiant than you can imagine. Not even the Tevinter Imperium could hope to slay her now! What hope do you have?"

Hope to slay Andraste? Putting aside the fact that she was already dead and it was her ashes they sought, why would they want to kill her in the first place?

"You're mad," Malcolm said. "Andraste is dead."

Kolgrim rounded on Malcolm, the heat of his anger flaring almost palpably around him. "You know nothing! Andraste revealed Herself to us! We are her Chosen! To arms, my brethren! Andraste will grant us victory!" Kolgrim drew a formidable two-handed maul and advanced on Alistair. As if punishing Malcolm first, a mage on the far side of the temple's vast room cast what seemed to be another crushing prison on to Malcolm.

"Starting. To. Prefer. Fire. Now," Malcolm said slowly and painfully.

Measuring how much time he and Malcolm had before Kolgrim reached them, Alistair decided it was safe and quickly cleansed the area. He'd cut it very close, however, and as soon as he was done, Kolgrim had swung his maul towards him, intent on crushing his chest. Alistair managed to block it with his shield, digging in with his feet to hold the maul away. Malcolm recovered and drew his sword, ducking into a low spin before coming up and slicing into Kolgrim's armpit, where his armor was very weak. Malcolm's sword didn't stop until it had cut deep into the shoulder joint. He quickly pulled it out and cut across Kolgrim's chest, slicing the man open in a shower of blood.

Before Kolgrim had even fallen to the floor, they advanced as a team toward the mage. Another cultist attacked them as Alistair summoned his smite and Malcolm intercepted him, cutting deep into the man's neck, and then pulling out his sword as he kicked the man away. The mage dropped from Alistair's smite and arrows from Leliana finished him off.

Around them, the other cultists lay dead, victims of the others of their group. Ahead of them was another doorway up a slight slope, and Alistair knew that it was where they had to go. Without a backward glance at the remains of the cultists, he led his group through the door and onto the top of the mountain, above the clouds. As they shaded their eyes from the glaring sun, a gigantic dragon flew above them, her beating wings blowing stinging snow into their faces. She roared and flew upward in a spiral before settling down on a ledge far above.

"Holy Maker. That's a high dragon," Malcolm whispered.

Wynne glanced at Malcolm. "Oh, I'm not afraid. It wouldn't eat me anyhow. Tough and stringy. You, on the other hand, ought to be worried."

"I already _am_," Malcolm said. "In fact, I think I need some clean smallclothes now."

Zevran moved to stand next to Alistair. "We're not planning on actually fighting it, are we? Couldn't we just sneak around it?"

"Because Malcolm and I are so fantastic at sneaking?" Though, if at any time Alistair wished he had any sort of talent in stealth, now was one of them.

"Perhaps if we move as quietly as we can and do not shout insults at her, she will let us pass?"

Alistair studied the path ahead and saw that another temple lay past the field above which the dragon roosted. They would have to get through her, whether by her allowing them to pass or by defeating her in combat. He hoped she would be a benevolent dragon, if such a thing existed. "We have to try. The Ashes must be in that temple beyond her."

Malcolm whirled around. "Are you insane? That is a _high dragon_. They aren't exactly known to be the most friendly sort. Don't you know why this is called the Dragon Age? In case you don't, let me refresh your memory. A dragon went on a huge rampage in this area, killing everything for miles and miles at the end of the Blessed Age. The dragon and her devastation could be seen from Orlais to Ferelden, even as far as the River Dane. Legend says that it was that very dragon sighting that inspired Loghain and his troops to victory in the Battle of River Dane. This could even be that very dragon. And you want to chance our lives and our ability to end the Blight for Ashes that might not even _be_ there?"

Alistair glared right back at his brother. "We have to retrieve those Ashes. We've come this far. We can't give up now."

"It isn't giving up. It's a tactical retreat. Right now, that dragon hasn't attacked us. We could get away to safety even as we argue about it. We already have to fight one high dragon in our near future—the archdemon. If any dragon should kill us, that's the one. Not this one. This one is an unnecessary risk. And, if I must remind you, it was you and Riordan who told me, rather forcibly, that we aren't to take unnecessary risks. Our job is to stop the Blight."

Alistair crossed his arms and allowed his frustration about Malcolm's sudden reticence to show. "Arl Eamon's army isn't going to follow us on our word, not while Eamon stays in a coma. And we need his army to defeat the Blight. We need Eamon to help us defeat Loghain, or we'll never get a chance to truly strike at the darkspawn in the first place. This is necessary. We must press forward."

Malcolm eyes flicked toward the high dragon and back to Alistair. "No."

Alistair knew his brother wasn't being cowardly. He was being rational in his own way. He didn't see it as Alistair did, didn't realize how necessary having Arl Eamon awake and well would be. While Alistair admitted to having a personal interest in the well-being of the arl, he knew it was the pragmatic part of him that more wished the arl to be well. He stepped closer to Malcolm and lowered his voice. "You act as if you have a choice. You don't. I'm ordering you to continue forward with us."

Eyes wide in disbelief and showing more of the betrayal that had been in there earlier with what happened with Zevran, Malcolm's mouth opened and closed as if searching for a reply. Finding none, he turned and started walking towards the temple beyond the snow field below the dragon. He walked quietly and towards the shadows, however, not putting himself in any undue risk.

Alistair wondered if his brother would ever speak to him again. But it had to be done. There were parts of the leadership that he shared with Malcolm, and welcomed having a partner to do so and was grateful to him when he'd taken the lead early on, but one of them had to maintain perspective. And in the end, a group such as theirs could only have one true leader. With Riordan gone in the Deep Roads and searching for the archdemon, it fell to him. As much as he disliked leading, he had to accept that he was the senior Warden here. And if Zevran survived the Joining, it meant they needed a more traditional command structure, not an equal partnership. He had responsibilities. If it meant suffering his brother's anger to get the job done, he would suffer it.

With a sigh, he turned to the others. "Zevran, Morrigan, please go back inside the other part of the temple, down where Brother Genitivi is. Someone needs to report our fates if something happens to us, and if we can't get back down the mountain today, someone has to get back to the horses and Gunnar." For a moment, it seemed Morrigan was going to object, her concerned look at Malcolm heading through what could be a killing field told him as much, but then she agreed, understanding the practicality of his order. After the other two had ducked back into the temple, Alistair, Wynne, and Leliana followed Malcolm's lead.

To his great relief, and he imagined to everyone else's, the high dragon did nothing but watch them with golden, glittering eyes. More curious than menacing, really. Just how intelligent were dragons, anyway? The doors to the temple were not locked, and they quickly went inside, eager to be out of the high dragon's sight and immediate threat. They found themselves in a small chamber carved from the granite of the mountain around it. It had the feel of being untouched by man for centuries and Alistair was fairly certain that the feeling was true. Piles of rocks fallen from the decrepit walls filled lower corners, cobwebs stretched over the upper corners.

The spirit of a man dressed in intricate heavy armor and wearing a helm of a design Alistair had never seen, either in person or in books, awaited them in front of another door. "I bid you welcome, pilgrims," he said in a deep, yet calm voice. It was almost soothing, in a way. It reminded Alistair of Duncan's voice. He also remembered Duncan's voice could quickly change from gentle to sharp in an instant, and he figured this spirit was much the same way in what seemed to be his post as a guardian.

"We've come seeking the Urn of Sacred Ashes," Alistair said, stepping toward the guardian.

The guardian nodded as if he'd already known. "You come to honor Andraste, and you shall, if you prove worthy. If you are found worthy, you will see the Urn and be allowed to take a small pinch of the ashes for yourself. If not..." The spirit let his statement be with the implied threat. It was obvious—if they weren't worthy and were here, they would not leave alive.

"How do we prove ourselves worthy?"

"You will endure tests of faith that will tell the true pilgrims from the false. We shall see how your souls fare."

Alistair nodded. He knew the others would prove themselves worthy, even Malcolm. There had been no ill will in his reticence to continue, only concern for their mission. "When does it begin?"

The spirit leveled a steady gaze on him. "It begins now. You must each answer a question from me, to determine if you will continue further. Answer truthfully, see the truth in yourself, and you may pass." He waited a moment before continuing, studying each of them in turn, seeking assent from their eyes. Then he returned to Alistair. "Alistair, prince and Grey Warden, do you wonder if things would have been different if you had been on the battlefield with Duncan?"

He would question how the being knew how he felt, but even Zevran, with his scant time spent with him compared to the others, knew that he wished he'd been on the field with Duncan and Cailan. That perhaps he could've taken that first blow from the ogre so that Duncan wouldn't have been mortally wounded and could have protected the king from being crushed to death. "I... yes. If Duncan and Cailan had been saved, and not me, everything would be better. If I'd just had the chance, maybe it truly would have been better." Yes, he still thought that, even now, even with knowing that it was more likely they all would have died on that field, for no one on the front lines had escaped the sea of darkspawn blades. If he was to move onward, to do as he must do, he had to put that behind him. Cailan had died as a hero and Duncan had died a death worthy of a Grey Warden, protecting Thedas from the fury of the Blight.

The guardian moved his gaze to Malcolm. "I see that the path that led you here was not easy. There is suffering in your past, your suffering and the suffering of others. You went against your father's wishes even as he lay dying, and refused to join the order he wished you to so that you would live on, so that you would fulfill your duty to Ferelden and Thedas. Do you think you failed him?"

Malcolm's eyes narrowed in anger, his fingers drew into white-knuckled fists at his side. For a moment, Alistair thought his brother might attack the spirit. But when Malcolm spoke, it was in a hurt whisper. "How do you know of my past?"

"Your path is laid out before me and plain to see—in the lines of your face and the scars of your heart." The guardian remained unrelenting in his interrogation. "Do you believe you failed your parents?"

Malcolm's hands relaxed, undid their fists. "Yes." His voice was as broken as Alistair had ever heard it, laced with a depth of guilt he hadn't realized his brother still possessed. He'd thought that after the trip to Ostagar that his brother understood that he was forgiven. But now he realized that while his brother might feel forgiven by Duncan, he didn't from the man who had raised him as his son. Alistair thought about how he would feel if he thought Duncan, the closest thing to a father-figure he'd ever had, was disappointed in him, and knew he would feel the same as Malcolm. It hurt his own heart to see.

"Ask your question, guardian," Wynne said. "I am ready."

The spirit nodded and addressed the mage. "You are ever the advisor, ready with a word of wisdom. Do you wonder if you only spout platitudes, burned into your mind in the distant past? Perhaps you are only a tool used to spread the word of the Circle and the Chantry? Does doubt ever chip away at your truths?"

Wynne studied the guardian as hard as he studied her. "You frame the statements in the forms of a questions, yet you already know our answers. There is no sense in hiding, is there? Yes. I do doubt at times. Only a fool is completely certain of himself."

Alistair fought a small laugh. Wynne _would_ be the one to go toe to toe with an ancient guardian and show no fear.

"And you," the guardian said to Leliana, "why do you say the Maker speaks to you, when all know the Maker has left? He spoke only to Andraste. Do you believe yourself her equal?"

The bard's deep blue eyes went wide. "I never said that! I—"

The guardian interrupted her protest. "In Orlais, you were someone. In Lothering you feared you would lose yourself, become a drab sister, and disappear. When your brothers and sisters of the cloister criticized you for what you professed, you were hurt, but you also reveled in it. It made you special. You enjoyed the attention, even if it was negative."

Leliana sputtered. "You're saying I made it up for the attention? I did not! I know what I believe!"

And Alistair believed her. She had explained to him, once, how she felt a vision of the Maker before that, how He had saved her after former mentor had stabbed her and left her for dead. His vision had helped her escape her prison and led her to the Chantry in Lothering, where she found sanctuary. That had brought her no attention, for she sought none. He suspected the guardian had been testing her faith in herself.

The guardian stepped aside. "The way is open. Good luck, and may you find what you seek."

Casting the guardian wary looks, the group strode past him and into the chamber beyond. Another spirit awaited, this one Alistair recognized as Teyrn Cousland. Malcolm stopped short, causing Wynne to bump into him. The spirit opened his arms in greeting. "My dearest child."

Malcolm's face went slack in disbelief. "Father?" he asked uneasily.

The spirit nodded. "You know that I am gone, and all your prayers and wishes will not bring me back. No more must you question yourself. I am not disappointed in you. You acted as if you felt you must, as we all do. You must take the pain and the guilt, acknowledge it, and let it go. It is time. You have a long road ahead of you, and you must be prepared. More pain awaits, it cannot be avoided. Yet you will be able to face it so long as you don't carry the pain of your past with you. I love you as if you were my own blood, and I am ever proud of you. You will do great things."

Malcolm reached out, as he had done in the Fade, but the spirit had gone. But different from the sloth demon's dream, Malcolm did not fall to crippling emotional pain. Instead, his face became confident, resolute. He'd taken his father's advice to heart and been made whole again.

In a way, Alistair envied that.

They moved on to the next chamber, where another spirit greeted them. This time it was Alistair who stopped short, nearly skidding in his attempt to halt his forward movement. In front of them stood the image of King Maric. The man Alistair had only met once but was supposed to be his father. The man whose throne others now expected Alistair to ascend. The man who had helped give Alistair life but who had failed to give him family. Instead, he'd only been given unwanted expectations and no training in how to live up to them. Alistair wanted to curse at him, but found that he couldn't bring himself to speak.

Maric looked steadily at Alistair as the teyrn had done to Malcolm. "I did not want to be king, either."

Further shock that he hadn't thought he could have made Alistair speak. "What?"

"After I watched my mother die in front of me and ran from the forest to escape my own death, I realized that I would be made king. I didn't think I deserved it. I was the Rebel Queen's inept son, a boy who couldn't even ride a horse properly, much less regain his throne and rule an entire country. But it wasn't my choice. Other people believed in me, that I could do it, people who had given their lives to my mother and the line of Calenhad the Great." The look in Maric's eyes changed, took on a depth Alistair hadn't expected, held the same emotion he'd seen when the teyrn had looked at Malcolm. Maric, his father, believed in him? Loved him? "You have this same gift within you. Others see it. Malcolm, Eamon, Duncan. I see it. They all see it, even if you do not. It is my fault that you do not, because I didn't provide you with the family you needed as I was able to do with Cailan and Malcolm."

Maric turned briefly to Malcolm. "And I know that even when you are angry with your brother, you believe in him. You must communicate that to him. He was not given what you had—the love and support of a family. Bryce gave that to you because I could not. Give to your brother that same gift." Then he moved back to Alistair. "You must accept what family you have now and believe in their belief in you, until you believe it yourself. The road ahead will be harsh and unrelenting. Carry this belief, and it will carry you."

The spirit of the former king disappeared, leaving Alistair confused and almost abandoned. He'd seen it, seen what Maric could have been to him. A father, a true father, if he had been allowed. And even if he hadn't been there to take on the role, he still believed in him. Everyone did, and that was what scared Alistair so badly. But if Maric had had the same feeling even as he continued leading the rebellion against the Orlesians and eventually won, then perhaps he could succeed as well.

He could at least try. He owed it to everyone.

Alistair continued forward, moving through the space where Maric had stood, and into the vast chamber beyond.

The guardian was there, as if waiting for them. "You have been through the trials of faith. You have walked the path of Andraste, and like Her, you have been cleansed. You have proven yourself worthy, pilgrims." He motioned toward the high staircase behind him, one that led to a statue of Andraste with an altar below it. On that altar rested an ornate urn. The very Ashes they sought. Slowly, they climbed the stairs, almost thinking their eyes were deceiving them, that they weren't actually there. Alistair reached for the Urn hesitantly, fearing that something would leap out and stop him, that he would be struck down by the Maker for even thinking of touching the Urn.

But nothing happened. One hand wrapped around the cool metal and he lifted the lid with the other. Leliana wordlessly handed him an empty pouch, and he carefully took a pinch of the Ashes and placed them inside. Then he tied it up tightly and kept it in his hand. With final respectful glances, no one able to put into words how it felt to be in the presence of the actual Ashes, they exited the temple through a side door. A magical barrier sprang into place behind them, sealing the temple shut once again.

The path led them down to the first temple, where Brother Genitivi and the others awaited them. When he caught sight of them, he tried to run over, and then scowled at the injured leg that kept him from doing so. "Welcome back! You were gone for quite some time. Well? Did you find it?"

Alistair dangled the pouch in front of the brother, and then carefully stowed it in a side pocket of his pack. He noticed Wynne casting some sort of spell on the pocket. He suspected it was to keep anything from falling out or being taken by a cutpurse.

"What was it like?" Genitivi asked, eyes following the path of the pouch as it disappeared.

"I don't think there are any words," Alistair replied, the first thing he'd said since before they'd reached the Urn.

The Chantry brother nodded. "You are a very fortunate person. And so am I. Perhaps my research will not seem so much like blasphemy to the Chantry now. We must organize an expedition. There is so much history here. It must be studied. And pilgrims should be allowed to come to the Urn."

"What?" said Malcolm, stepping toward Genitivi. "That is not wise. Many will try to exploit this discovery. That's the way people are and you should know that. I'm years younger than you and I do."

"But the Urn belongs to all the faithful!" Genitivi shouted. "How can can you deny this to them? No. We must share it."

"I agree," Leliana said before anyone else could reply. "We cannot withhold this from others. It is not our place."

The naivete from the bard surprised Alistair. "So everyone comes by and takes some ashes from the Urn and we hope that Urn is self-replenishing. Malcolm is right. People will seek to exploit the Urn, far more than would-be pilgrims seeking forgiveness, I'm afraid. Few should know of this place."

"I... I suppose you're right." But even acknowledging the others' opinions didn't stop Genitivi from looking crestfallen.

Alistair let him have his disappointment. Better that than the Ashes being exploited by the selfish whims of man. The temple behind them and Ashes in hand, they climbed down the mountain before either the night or the high dragon fell upon them.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

**Malcolm**

"I owe you an apology," Malcolm said as he rode next to his brother while the day faded into twilight. It'd taken two days of travel into the foothills of the Frostbacks for him to man up and offer his apology for trying to turn back when they'd reached the high dragon.

Alistair didn't reply, keeping his concentration somewhere ahead of them.

And now his brother was _ignoring_ him? "So... I'm sorry."

No reply.

He'd spent two whole days agonizing over the apology because of what some spirit of his dead natural father had said to him and here he was, offering the blasted thing to his brother and he was being ignored. Two days of realizing that Alistair had been acting responsibly and was entirely within his rights to order him around and that he was lucky that his brother didn't do that more often, that he should be grateful for the latitude that he did get. But this ignoring thing was fairly petty. And stupid, really. Not anything in keeping with the whole responsible, leader, senior Grey Warden in Ferelden thing. Now he couldn't quite remember why he was going to apologize nor why he'd wanted to in the first place.

Then Alistair said, "Darkspawn."

Malcolm blinked. "What?"

"Ahead. Can't you feel them? A small band of them. Eight or ten, maybe. Scouting party, probably. Had you been talking to me just now? Is that why you didn't sense them?" Alistair gave him a curious look, as if he had suddenly grown wings and claimed he was a griffon returned from the Maker.

"I—"

Then the darkspawn came out of the cover of the trees and attacked the party. Malcolm slid off his horse, sword and shield in hand, and shouted at the darkspawn, "Seriously? Can't you guys just give us a chance to finish our arguments once in a while? Don't you darkspawn have brotherly arguments at all? At all?" He pushed back the nearest genlock with a kick to the chest before slicing through the shoulder of another. "Just _once_ I would like to be able to finish an argument or a conversation. Is it going to have to wait until we end the Blight? Is that it?" Another genlock fell to his blade and he went looking for another, and came up empty.

Two shrieks lay dead in the middle of the trail, along with the genlocks he'd killed and a few assorted hurlocks. Thankfully, this time there had been no emissaries, and therefore no fire or crushing prisons. Well, if they were going to interrupt another argument, at least they hadn't done it by burning him. He kicked the body of the nearest genlock. "You... you smell." He couldn't even think of proper insults anymore. Apparently, he'd run out.

"Tell them how you really feel," Alistair said, walking up next to him. "Really. Don't hold back on my account."

Malcolm scowled at him and used his foot to roll the body towards the shrieks. This far out ahead of the main horde, they'd want to burn what they could to keep the least amount of land blighted as possible. But he wasn't going to put his hands on the darkspawn any more than he had do. Feet worked just fine in piling the bodies. For the most part, anyway. Depended on the number of bodies and how high they wanted the pile.

Alistair joined him in moving darkspawn bodies. "What was it you were saying to me before?"

"I was apologizing. And you were ignoring me." Bodies were piled properly now and he rummaged in his pack for that bottle of whatever potion Riordan had given each of them back in Lothering. They were going to run out soon and he realized they should've asked the other Grey Warden what exactly it was so they could replenish their supply. It kept them from having to ask either of their mages to risk themselves any more than they had to with the taint.

Alistair reached out and stayed Malcolm's hand. "We can't set them on fire yet."

He sighed and put the bottle away. "Are we waiting for a special time? A celebration of Hey We Killed More Darkspawn Aren't We Awesome? Because we haven't had enough of those."

"No. Well, sort of. Do you have any empty vials?"

Oh. _Oh_. Right, there'd been that whole incident where his brother had agreed with Zevran that the former Antivan Crow could attempt the Joining. And now that they'd killed some more darkspawn, they had fresh darkspawn blood at hand that Zevran had helped obtain, put together with the box they'd gotten from Riordan and having Wynne who know all the magical mage-stuff that had to go with the ceremony, they could have a wonderful Joining.

That could possibly kill one of his friends.

Then again, even _he _had said that it should be left up to anyone if they wanted to try to become a Grey Warden or not. That didn't mean he had to like it. Which was good, because he didn't. At all. He glared down at the pile of darkspawn bodies. "I really, really hate you darkspawn. As in, you're starting to approach the level of hatred I have for Arl Howe, and I used to think that was entirely unapproachable." Then he looked over at Alistair. "I don't have any. I'll get one from Wynne or Morrigan."

But he didn't have to go far because Wynne was already joining them near the bodies and handed Alistair the empty vial he'd been looking for. He quickly filled it with the darkspawn blood, and then barely after his brother had removed his hands from the vicinity of the bodies, Malcolm lit them on fire. "Take that," he muttered then turned to Alistair. "You talk to Zevran. I'll go find us a campsite."

"I will accompany you," Wynne said, and fell into step next to him. He glanced at her in surprise, but said nothing. Gunnar trotted behind them as they walked into the woods. The shadows had grown longer during the battle and it was nearly full dark. Wynne moved her staff slightly and the end of it glowed, lighting the trees around them.

For a bit, they said nothing. Malcolm was content to say nothing because he didn't want to go off about his brother again, unless it was to Alistair's face. Then again, if he did, they'd run into more darkspawn, he was sure of it. If he really thought about it, he had no right to be mad at him. He'd agreed with the decision about Zevran at first and he'd only disagreed when it became a reality. Alistair needed him to believe in him so that he could believe in... blast it. That was a lot of believing Maric had been talking about. He'd gotten lost in how many there had been. But he'd grasped the concept. He had to be there for his brother, as both bastard prince and Grey Warden.

"What does being a Grey Warden mean to you?" Wynne asked suddenly.

Now Malcolm knew what other people felt like when he burst out with his random questions. He kept forgetting that people weren't privy to his thoughts, and while the question might sound like a logical progression from his thoughts, to others, they were just random. And sudden. As for the question itself, he wasn't sure. "I don't know what it means to me. But it does makes me _feel_ a lot of things: angry, determined, dutiful, more angry, purposeful, useful, and some more angry. It means a lot to Alistair, though. To him, it's an honor. It always has been and it always will be. For me, though..." He shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes, I'm not sure that it means anything, except that I'm supposed to fight darkspawn and stop the Blight."

He could hear the rushing of a stream while Wynne remained quiet before finally replying, "Yes, I heard you say as much when we were at the top of the mountain, eyeing a high dragon. But there's more to it than killing darkspawn and saving the world from the Blight. As a Grey Warden, you're a guardian of men. And you guard them because their continued existence is more important than you are. You serve them by protecting them."

He snagged a low-lying branch from a nearby tree, shaking snow to the ground. "Which is why I kill darkspawn and stop the Blight. And why I shouldn't take unnecessary risks because then there wouldn't be enough Grey Wardens to stand between the rest of mankind and the darkspawn. Riordan gave me that lecture already and he was amazingly serious about it. What is this about? Is it about me wanting to turn back when we got to the high dragon? Because that was about stopping the Blight. We could've been killed up there, and then there would be no Grey Wardens to stop the Blight here in Ferelden. The entire country would have been lost unless Riordan managed to come back from the Deep Roads and do it himself. The man's got some serious skills, but I don't think anyone, even him, could do it alone."

Wynne stopped in the small clearing that they'd reached and studied him. "And yet you reject the idea of allowing another person to become a Grey Warden? An action that would increase the number of Grey Wardens in Ferelden and up the chances of at least one of you eventually getting to the archdemon in order to kill it?"

He stared at her as he absently played with the small branch he'd torn off the tree. "Or it could kill him outright. You know as well as I do that the Joining is often fatal. Two people died at mine."

She met his stare unflinchingly. "The Blight requires sacrifices from all of us. You and Alistair are proof that they aren't made in vain. Zevran could be another example. Every time we fight the darkspawn, he puts himself in as much risk as you and Alistair. Leliana, Morrigan, and I, we all stay away from the thick of things, using our ranged abilities to our advantage. It keeps us safe, for the most part. Zevran does not. He's in the melee with you and Alistair and he has no immunity to the taint. Would you rather he become infected by the taint? Would you like to be the one to kill him out of mercy before he becomes a ghoul?"

Punching him in the solar plexus would have hurt less, added to the fact that she sounded remarkably like Duncan. "How..."

"I know what Grey Wardens must do when they find people who have been tainted. It is another of the sacrifices they make. A responsibility they take up because the rest of us cannot make that decision and carry it out. I'll ask again. Would you like to be the one—"

He threw the branch away and it tumbled through the underbrush. "No! I never did. I never want to again. Maker, you're unrelenting, you know that?" She'd practically torn him open and flayed him with guilt.

Her eyes were sad and they held no triumph at his admission. "The darkspawn and the Blight even more so. You must see this and be able to do whatever must be done. Your friend may die today, a week from now, or thirty years from now. But how he lives, how anyone lives, is what matters. He is choosing to become a Grey Warden, and as he has all the other skills needed to be one, it is within his rights to choose."

Malcolm sighed and looked away, towards the darkness beyond the light from the mage's staff. The world seemed so dark lately that he wondered if there would be light again after the Blight. If they could even stop it. "I just want people to stop _dying_."

"That is what we all want. But that can't come at the cost of keeping people from living."

He looked toward her again. There was no animosity in her grey eyes. Sadness, some hope, wisdom, all things he'd noticed in Duncan's and Riordan's eyes, in his mother's and father's eyes as well. "I understand. But I still don't have to like it. And I still maintain that it would be easier if I had a griffon."

She pat him on the arm and laughed. "No one has asked you to like it, young man. Just to accept it. Even without a griffon. Now we must get back. This clearing is big enough for our tents and firepit and the others are waiting."

As the others finished setting up camp, Malcolm took his pack and his dog and went searching for the stream he'd heard earlier. The mud and grime and darkspawn blood and drake blood and whatever else was on him and his armor was finally getting to him enough where the cold be damned, he'd bathe. He found the stream, meltwater from one of the many glaciers in the high Frostbacks. It ran beautifully clear, reflecting the moonlit sky above. There was a safe enough pool that looked like he could submerge his whole body quickly into it. He shucked off his armor and clothing and jumped in.

And would have screamed if said scream hadn't frozen in his throat.

A clear, beautiful, incredibly _cold_ stream. His skin had gone immediately numb and suddenly he didn't care about being clean. He scraped at his skin, gave up quickly, and jumped out, wondering if he'd ever feel any parts of his body again, and wrapped his thick cloak around him. What kind of stupid idea had that been? He glared at Gunnar accusingly. "You should have stopped me."

Gunnar cocked his head to the side, letting him know that if his master wanted to do something so stupid as to jump into a mountain stream, then he could find out for himself how stupid it was. And when he barked, it sounded an awful lot like he was laughing.

He dried off painfully, his skin prickling as the numbness wore off. Then he dressed as fast as possible and went straight back to the camp, wanting to jump into the fire. The irony of that wasn't lost on him, either.

"What happened to you?" Leliana asked as soon as she saw him.

"The water was really cold," he mumbled into the folds of his cloak, tightly wrapped around him still, even though he'd gotten all his clothing and armor back on.

"What was that?"

He glared at her, knowing she'd heard exactly what he'd said and that she only wanted everyone else to hear it, too. "I _said_, the _water_ was _cold_."

Her cheery laughter merely confirmed his suspicion. He glared at her again and sat by the fire. Gunnar kindly plopped next to him and added his own considerable body heat. While he'd been gone, not only had camp been set up, but Wynne and Alistair had finished the necessary preparations for Zevran's Joining. Alistair let him know that they were going to do it as soon as possible, and then informed him it would be right now and he had to be involved since there were only two Wardens, and it took two Wardens to administer it. Malcolm was fairly certain there really only needed to be one, but he wasn't going to object to centuries-old tradition.

They walked to a smaller clearing where, in theory, Leliana and Morrigan wouldn't hear what was going on, but they could if they tried to hear. There was only so much they could do, though. Alistair carried the chalice containing the prepared darkspawn blood and whatever else had to be added to it. Zevran had yet to crack a joke. In fact, Malcolm had never seen his Antivan friend this solemn. He realized that Zevran really was taking this very seriously. He meant it. He wanted to be a Grey Warden out of a lot more than repaying a debt. It was something deeper for him, something with meaning.

Who was he to argue with that?

Once they reached the clearing, Alistair turned to Zevran and said the words Duncan had said to Malcolm and the other recruits months ago. "The Grey Wardens were founded during the first Blight, when humanity stood on the verge of annihilation. So it was that the first Grey Wardens drank of darkspawn blood and mastered their taint. This is the source of our power and our victory. Those who survive the Joining become immune to the taint. We can sense the darkspawn and use it to slay the archdemon. We only say a few words prior to the Joining." Alistair looked over at Malcolm.

He nodded and was surprised to find that he remembered every word Alistair had said back when all of the other Grey Wardens, back when Duncan, had been alive. "Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day, we shall join you."

Alistair held out the chalice. "Zevran, step forward. You are called upon to submit yourself to the taint. For the greater good."

The elf accepted the chalice, lifted it, and drank.

"From this moment forth," said Alistair, "you are a Grey Warden."

Then there was the moment where they waited. The instant between Zevran giving the chalice back and waiting for the taint to hit his bloodstream.

It hit.

The elf's hands went to his throat, his eyes opened wide and white and unseeing, and he stumbled. Malcolm instinctively went to step forward, but Alistair removed a hand from the chalice and placed it on his shoulder. It was firm, but it was kind. A reminder that there was another Grey Warden brother who was witness to this suffering, and who understood.

A thud and Zevran was on the ground.

Wynne stepped out from the trees where she'd waited and checked on the elf. "He lives," she said, unable to keep the smile of relief from her face.

Both Alistair and Malcolm shared that smile.

The box had also contained the cleaning materials and extra pendants. They quickly cleaned the chalice and constructed Zevran's pendant as Wynne attempted to position Zevran's unconscious body into a more comfortable position. They waited, standing vigil for an hour, until the elf began to stir.

He sat up slowly. "What, no orgy? And such grim faces? Ha! I must be alive, then, because the Fade would not be so cruel to me after my death, of that I am certain."

Wynne rolled her eyes while Malcolm and Alistair laughed, more out of sheer relief than amusement. They quietly returned to camp. Morrigan and Leliana waited there, eating some sort of stew one of them had prepared. Zevran ate two bowls of it before crawling into his tent to sleep, claiming exhaustion. Remembering the time after his own Joining, Malcolm understood.

Finding nothing else exciting for himself to do, Malcolm grabbed the encrypted papers from his pack to have another go at them. He sat just outside his tent, carefully tilting the letter in front of him so he could read the words by the fire's light.

_Duncan,_

_ Since you ask, no, there is still no sign of the taint in me, and despite all the poking and prodding the Warden mages here have done, they still cannot figure out why. Since they haven't discovered the reason, the First Warden decided that I shall remain here, as ever, indefinitely. I agree, it would be nice to escape the Anderfels if only for a visit to anywhere else but here. Even in cold Ferelden. By the way, I've heard you still haven't as many Ferelden Wardens as you'd like. Have you lost your charm, then, and having problems with recruitment? If only you had griffons. It would make the job so much easier._

_ It is good to hear that my sons fare well with their foster families. I am not surprised that Alistair, even being only nine years old, has taken an interest in bearing arms as a knight. It seems that he is his father's son. Though I do fear what this new wife of Eamon's will do with him. She is Orlesian—and you know as well as I do how Orlesian nobles can be. If there is a single rumor in Redcliffe about Alistair being Eamon's bastard then Isolde will find a way to make Alistair disappear. She wouldn't kill him, but she will send him away somehow. It saddens me that there is nothing I can do, and nothing you or Maric can do, either._

_ As for Malcolm, I wish I could have seen the uproar he must have caused in Bryce's castle when he tracked mud everywhere trying to escape the wrath of a little girl with a mud-spattered dress. From the stories Maric told me about his childhood, Malcolm is just as mischievous as he had been. I was certainly not anything like that as a child. At least we will not have to worry about him being sent away—Bryce and Eleanor are wonderful, and unlike that Orlesian wife of Eamon's, they will never think of casting Malcolm away._

_ Thank you for keeping watch on them, my friend, even though you must be busy with your duties as the Warden Commander's second._

_Fiona _

_Weisshaupt Fortress_

Another one. He wished he had copies of the letters Duncan had sent in reply to Fiona's, even if he could only read them once, and then have to get rid of them. They filled in many of the gaps, let him get to know who Fiona and Maric really were. And Duncan, in a way. Grey Warden things were there to learn as well—such as learning that Weisshaupt will make you stay there if anything odd happens to you and they can't explain it, that you can rid your body of the taint but they didn't know how, and there was one Warden who would never go through the Calling. Ironic how it would be his and Alistair's mother, still alive and healthy, but they would never be able to meet her. Yet she had been interested in their lives and, judging from how recently the letters ran, still was.

Somehow Duncan had kept tabs on him as he'd grown, enough so that he was able to send anecdotes in letters to Fiona. Had he been at the castle when Delilah Howe had chased him everywhere? Or had Bryce just relayed the story to him? If Duncan had ever been around, he couldn't remember him. As far as he knew, the first time he'd met the man had been when his father had introduced him the night before Highever fell.

Of course, that was still less weird than how he'd met his natural father only once and not really, because he'd been a spirit in a temple guarding the Urn of Sacred Ashes.

And he still couldn't believe it had been real. The entire experience, actually standing before the Ashes, actually knowing that some of those Ashes were still with them, sitting in Alistair's pack magically protected by a spell of Wynne's, seemed completely unreal. Malcolm tapped his finger on the paper, fighting the duty he had to burn it. Then he sighed, looked about to see if anyone was watching him closely, and tossed the letter in the fire. He knew he'd promised Wynne that he would burn them all, and he would. But he felt compelled to read them first, even though that act alone put everything at risk. What he really wished, though, was to be able to tell Alistair. If his brother ever found out that he knew and hadn't told him, he might never forgive him. It had to be done, though. Like so many other things about this Blight and this war, it had to be done.

A wet nose nudged at his hand and he looked over to find Gunnar tilting his head at him, a wet stick in his mouth. The hound dropped it in his lap, drool and all.

Malcolm frowned at him. "You don't seriously want to play fetch, do you? You're a wardog. You kill darkspawn as easily as you breathe. Foes tremble on hearing your mighty howl. Bandits wet their smallclothes and flee on seeing your bared teeth."

Gunnar barked and spun in a circle.

"Well, we can't. It's night, we're in camp, and you know that Zevran has traps everywhere. We wouldn't want a repeat incident of when I caught on fire, would we?"

The dog whined.

"That's what I thought." He pushed the stick off his lap and onto the ground. "How about you go bother Morrigan? She likes you, you know, even though she complains that she doesn't. You should go slobber all over those potions she's got out. Or steal all the herbs in her pack. Just don't eat them, some might be bad for you."

Another bark, and then Gunnar stole a glance towards Morrigan's campsite, which appeared empty.

"'Tis not nice, telling your dog to interfere with my belongings," Morrigan said from behind him.

He turned to face her, a smile tugging at his lips. "'Tis not nice sneaking up on people, either," he teased.

"I wish to speak with you." Her tone was serious, not responding to his teasing at all, which was unlike her.

The forming smile melted away. "Is something wrong?"

The witch reached down, grasped his forearms, and pulled him to his feet. "Not here. Follow me."

Though trepidation made his heart begin to hammer in his chest, he followed her to her campsite and beyond. "What about the traps?"

"Lest you forget, I go with Zevran when he sets them. We are in no danger so long as you stay with me."

He wondered if there was a double meaning in that, but he didn't ask. This deep into the forest, the snow was light on the ground, the trees having caught most of it. It crunched underneath Malcolm's feet, yet somehow Morrigan's footsteps were entirely silent. Not for the first time, he thought had she not been a mage, she'd make a really good rogue. Either that or she used magic to maintain her silent steps. As the distance from the fires increased, his night vision improved, aided by the full moon's light lacing through the finally stopped walking when they reached the stream from earlier. "What's going on?" he asked her, his breath appearing white in the frigid air.

She adjusted her cloak so that it wrapped around her better, shutting out the cold. "I was curious about what you were reading, for one. Your face became very grave the more you read, and then you burned it as you have a few other documents recently. I simply..." she trailed off then, her eyes darting toward the trees around them, as if she were afraid to speak the rest of her sentence.

"Simply what?" he repeated.

Morrigan looked up at him, her amber eyes reflecting the moonlight. "I simply wished to know about your well-being. 'Tis not easy for me to admit that. I feel foolish even doing so. And yet, I find that I must know. You have changed since you and Alistair returned from Ostagar, after Riordan departed. It has not escaped my notice that you no longer seek out your death. I have been most relieved to see it. Yet I fear its return, and when I see you as grave as you were, I find myself overly concerned."

He looked up at the clear night sky for a moment, his eyes dancing from star to star. Alistair's question from long ago came back to him. _"I need to know if you trust Morrigan... anything she says might not be true, no matter how much you think it might be."_ He trusted her. Did he? Or did he merely want to trust her and had mistaken that want for trust to be trust? His eyes came down from the sky and he studied her again. Then he noticed how open her face was, vulnerable as only he had seen before. This was why she had brought him so far away from the camp. This was a side of her she wanted no one else to see, because she viewed it as a weakness. "They were letters," he said quietly. "Correspondence from my natural mother to Duncan. They were friends. She... she is a Grey Warden."

Her lips pulled into a small frown. "'Tis not so bad, that she was a Grey Warden. Why must you burn them after you read them? I know it pains you. It is written plainly on your face."

He studied the ground. "She's also a mage."

Morrigan arched an eyebrow. "Your mother? A mage? I never would have suspected such a thing. Take it as no insult, but your knowledge of the arcane is rather lacking."

"And here I thought you'd comment on the fact that her other son is a former templar who still possesses the abilities of one."

"We are not speaking of your fool brother. He is clueless about your mother, is he not? That is why you burn the letters? Your Bannorn would not be happy about your mother being a mage?"

"And Orlesian," he added. "And an elf."

Morrigan's laughter burst out, ringing from tree to tree. He reveled in the sound, even though it was at his expense. "My, that _would_ be rather damning, wouldn't it?" Then her laughter stopped and she became solemn again. "And you speak as if she were still alive."

He picked at the edge of his sleeve. "She is. The Wardens keep her at Weisshaupt Fortress because she is the first and only Warden to ever find herself cured of the taint and they cannot figure out why. But because of the situation with the throne, and having to overthrow Loghain so that we can get more Wardens into Ferelden to combat the Blight, and therefore putting Alistair on the throne, we can never see her. Nor can Alistair ever know." His eyes flicked back to where their camp was. "He would want to see her and that would end up with him getting killed. But it hurts to keep it from him. I know he isn't your favorite person, but he is my brother." He sighed. "I really should just burn every letter the moment I find it. Yet I can't bring myself to do so, I keep reading them before I burn them, instead. My own curiosity puts everything at risk."

Her hand moved out from under the cloak to touch his. "If you wish, I complete that task for you."

"Some people would call you a heartless bitch for that," he said.

She started to move her hand away. "Would you?"

He tightened his hold, keeping her from withdrawing. "No. I'm not some people. I understand what's behind your offer. You are offering to do something for me that is too painful for me to do. I would appreciate that, I think. For you to do that for me, before any of those letters ends up in Alistair's hands, or anyone else's. Thank you."

"You are welcome."

"What else made you bring me out here where others could not hear? I know it wasn't just to talk about my mother."

She gave him a small smile. "It was also to talk about mine."

"Oh?" Morrigan so rarely mentioned her mother than he often found himself forgetting Flemeth entirely. Which was surprising, considering the legend behind Flemeth's entire existence. But Morrigan's relationship with her mother was a strange one, stranger than Malcolm had ever seen. There was a bond between mother and daughter, certainly. Did they share the same blood? There was no telling. He couldn't imagine Flemeth carrying a child and giving birth, not under any circumstance. Had she kidnapped Morrigan from a Chasind family? But then that wouldn't explain Morrigan's exceptional skills and power as a mage, closer to Flemeth's power than any other mage, he figured. And Wynne had commented more than once about her awe at Morrigan's abilities.

"I have been studying her grimoire," Morrigan said. "'Tis... not what I expected. I had hoped for a collection of her spells, a map of the power she commands. But it was not it. One thing in particular within her writings disturbs me. In the grimoire, in great detail, Flemeth explains the means by which she has survived for centuries."

Both his eyebrows lifted in surprise that the secret would be there so plainly. His discomfort came out with his dry sense of humor. "Let me guess. She drinks blood? Eats children?"

Morrigan's lips twitched in want to smile. Good, she wasn't mad. "That is closer to the truth than you might think. Flemeth has raised many daughters over her long lifetime. There are stories of these many Witches of the Wilds throughout Chasind legend, yet I have never seen a one and always wondered why not. And now I know. They are all Flemeth. When her body becomes old and wizened, she raises a daughter. And when the time is right, she takes her daughter's body for her own."

On hearing her words, that Flemeth would one day appear to steal Morrigan's body, his fingers went numb, and not from the cold. Yet if what Morrigan said was true, it made no sense that Flemeth would send Morrigan away, especially if Morrigan could discover the fate that awaited her at her own mother's hands. "Why would she risk sending you with me?"

Morrigan shrugged. "Perhaps 'tis as she said: the darkspawn threaten her as much as they threaten anyone else. Or perhaps she believes that this journey will make me more powerful. According to the tome, if the host is already powerful and trained in magic, it takes far less time for Flemeth to settle in."

And then Morrigan would be gone. A chill appeared within him, a writhing fear that Morrigan would be forever absent from his life. A connection entirely severed, leaving only the tattered remains of torn feelings. Lost love, if he could call it that. Perhaps he could. "What do you intend to do about it?" Morrigan had to have a plan. She always did. It was her way. And it was that way of hers that made others suspicious of her, yet for him, it gave him some of his confidence in her.

Morrigan reached up and cupped his face with both of her hands, tilting his it so that he could only look directly into her eyes. Her frantic, fearful eyes that imagined the fate she would suffer were Flemeth able to complete her plans. "There is only one possible response to this. Flemeth must die."

He agreed. It surprised him, that he would agree so readily to aiding in matricide, but he couldn't see another way around it. Flemeth was... Flemeth. Old. Wise. Certainly a maleficar and an abomination, if the stories Morrigan and Leliana had told him over the nights were true. Reasoning with her or trying to strike a deal with her would be the same as making a deal with a demon. The demon always won out, no matter how good the deal might look to the person who bargained. "I'll help you," he whispered.

She closed her eyes, relief allowing some of tightness to recede from her face. "Then what needs to be done is for you to go back to her hut in the Wilds. Without me. If I am present when she is slain, I cannot be certain that she will not be able to possess my body right then. So I must remain at the camp. Confront her and slay her quickly. I doubt she will truly be dead, even then, but it will take her years to find a new host and recover her power... if that is even possible. The thing I must have is her true grimoire. With it, I can defend against her power in the future."

"So you can be protected."

"Yes." Her answer was reluctant, as if pulled from her by an unholy torture and unbearable to admit. He understood why. Her belief in herself and her power was what carried her. The confidence she had in herself, the encasing aura of her magic and ability to deal with whatever came her way. But this? This had not been anything she'd ever fathomed.

Malcolm reached up and took her face in his own hands. "You know, I never really saw you as someone who needed protecting. The wild girl who stole mirrors from unsuspecting noblewomen, pulling tricks on Chasind so she would not be discovered, deceiving templars so they could not imprison you, changing into a wolf so you could run through the forest and fields freely. Powerful. If anything, others needed protection from you. But Flemeth... she is something entirely different. I am not powerful like you, but I will do what I can against her. For you, I will become a templar."

That made her smile. "You would be the first templar I've ever known who was not a fool." Her eyes glanced down at his mouth. "I am grateful for that. And you."

Then she kissed him, and he was lost.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

**Alistair**

"Where... where am I?" Arl Eamon asked, eyes blinking rapidly to chase away the bleariness Alistair imagined would be there after being in a lengthy coma. "What has happened?"

Alistair found himself starting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation and quickly covered his mouth with his hand. "The correct question might be what _hasn't_ happened," he said after he regained most of his composure.

Isolde shot him a glare from the other side of Teagan, but Alistair ignored it. He'd grudgingly given her permission to be in the same room as he and Malcolm, but only because he knew Eamon would appreciate seeing his wife alive and well after he'd awakened. Teagan rolled his eyes and said to Eamon, "Be calm, brother. You have been deathly ill for a very long time. Do you remember anything?"

Eamon said nothing for a moment and Alistair took the chance to study the man. He looked impossibly older, much older than Alistair remembered. Eamon had been of an age with Duncan, yet by the look of him, with entirely grey hair and the long grey beard, he seemed a decade or two older than the former Warden Commander. It must have been the poison and the coma that had aged him so quickly, for he had no other answer.

"Teagan?" Eamon asked. "What are you doing here? Where is Isolde?"

Beside him, Alistair saw Malcolm roll his eyes. Wynne fixed his brother with a glare and and Malcolm stared back at her, entirely unaffected. The rest of their party had accompanied them as well, Morrigan standing next to Malcolm, Zevran and Leliana quietly sitting near the door with Gunnar.

"I am here, my husband," Isolde said, moving forward to bend over next to the bed.

Alistair's teeth ground together at hearing her speak and he willed himself to be nice. Or, more accurately, not say anything at all, because he had nothing nice to say. And while Malcolm seemed immune to Wynne's death glare for the time being, he was not.

Eamon tried to sit up as he looked frantically around the room. "And Connor? Where is my boy? Where is our son?"

Isolde clasped her hands together. "He lives, though many others are dead. There is much to tell you, husband."

_Yes_, thought Alistair, _like how you're a cold-hearted bitch who let over a hundred villagers and soldiers and knights die because you sought to protect your son from the Chantry. And you decided to stab my brother in the heart with the hot poker of his family's massacre because you were defensive about your damning actions. Let's see if you tell Eamon _that_, dear arlessa._ A glance at Malcolm informed him that his brother was thinking much the same. In fact, he'd shifted his weight as if he was going to step forward and say something. Before there would be an incident merely minutes after Eamon had awakened, though Alistair had no illusions that there wasn't an incident forthcoming in the very near future, he stuck his arm out and held Malcolm back.

Malcolm glared at him.

Alistair gave a short shake of his head.

His brother rolled his eyes again, but stopping trying to move forward.

"Dead?" repeated Eamon. "Then... it was not a dream."

Bann Teagan glanced quickly back at Malcolm and Alistair before returning to the arl. "Much has happened since you fell ill, brother. Some of it will not be easy for you to hear."

Eamon's face become resolute, much the image of the arl Alistair knew. "Then tell me. I wish to hear all of it."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow.

This time, Alistair rolled his eyes. Luckily, Teagan didn't catch it when he turned to Alistair. "If you would?" he asked, and then moved away to stand with Wynne.

While Eamon sat up, Alistair asked, "What's the last thing you remember, aside from what you thought were dreams?"

"I'm... not sure. I recall going to bed a few days after this boy," he indicated Malcolm, "had tried to escape from Duncan," Eamon answered slowly.

"Hey, I didn't try to escape." Malcolm's eyes, burning with resentment, slid over to Isolde. "She kicked me out. I stayed outside in the freezing rain waiting either to get sick from hypothermia or have someone come out and get me. I could have run if I'd wanted to, but I _didn't_ and people seem to keep forgetting that—"

Alistair held up a hand. "We get it. But we've got a lot of ground to cover and you could go on for days about that."

"And a lot of other things," Malcolm muttered.

Alistair leveled a glare of his own at his brother. "Are you quite done or do you need me to ask you to leave?"

"No, I'll shut up." His tone of voice informed them that he'd rather do anything but.

Alistair gathered up his emotions and made himself speak from as much of an objective standpoint as he could while he explained what had occurred since Duncan and Malcolm's visit to Redcliffe. "At Ostagar, Loghain quit the field. Because he left, the King's army and the Grey Wardens were massacred. Cailan is dead. Duncan is dead, along with all of the other Grey Wardens, except myself, Malcolm, and Zevran." It felt odd, to include Zevran in the statement, but it was true. There were three of them now. Four, once Riordan returned. "Malcolm and I were saved by..." he trailed off, unsure of how to explain the rescue.

"Flemeth, the infamous Witch of the Wilds, who transformed into a giant bird and plucked us from the Tower of Ishal with her talons. Or so I was told when I awakened," Malcolm said. "And don't give me that look, Arl Eamon, that's the only explanation we've got and I can't even begin to think of another one that wouldn't be equally as implausible."

When Eamon turned his questioning look to Alistair, he nodded to confirm what his brother had said. Then he continued, "In the first town we visited, we were able to determine that Loghain has declared himself regent—and some people call him the king, now—and that the Grey Wardens are to blame for the treachery that killed Cailan. We've bounties on our heads and there has already been one assassination attempt. Except there are many, Bann Teagan included, who don't believe Loghain's lies and gather under our banner."

Malcolm muttered something.

"Oh, now what? Just say it," Alistair told him, entirely exasperated.

"I said, you might as well just tell him exactly _what_ banner the Bannorn are gathering under. It would save him a lot of explaining to you about how he'll reason that you should step forward as Maric's heir because your claim is much stronger than Loghain's because yours is by blood." Malcolm's words became very blasé as he went on, almost sounding bored. "And that even though you don't want to and would rather Eamon or Teagan step forward, their claim is by marriage and they would seem that they're ever much the opportunists that Loghain has already shown himself to be. Then there's all that other stuff about Ferelden wanting a Theirin on the throne." He looked at Eamon. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Eamon gave them a slow nod. "Yes. That's almost exactly what I would have said, except I would have sounded much more serious about it, young man."

"Yes, well, there's been so much seriousness lately that I feel I have to break it up at times. Usually at the most inopportune moments, such as when fighting darkspawn, bandits, or whatever other various and sundry formerly mythical creatures fate has decided to throw at us."

Alistair could've sworn he saw the faint hint of a smile of Eamon's lips before the arl said, "That sounded remarkably like something Maric would say."

Malcolm looked over at Wynne before looking back to Eamon. "So I've been told. Just so you know, Alistair's even worse. He's just particularly well behaved right now. I'm actually impressed."

Eamon nodded, and then his face went distant, as if he was taking in everything that had been said. Then he frowned, any trace of humor vanishing from his face. "What you're saying is that Loghain instigates a civil war though the darkspawn are on our very doorstep. Long have I known him. He is a sensible man, one who never desired power."

"I was there when he announced he was taking control of the throne, Eamon," Teagan said. "He is mad with ambition, I tell you."

Eamon's eyes flared with anger. "Mad, indeed. Mad enough to kill Cailan, to kill myself and destroy my lands." Alistair noticed Malcolm's jaw flex at want to speak out about who exactly was responsible for the land-destroying, but remarkably, he said nothing. Eamon continued speaking without interruption. "Whatever happened to him to change him, Loghain must be stopped. What's more, we can scarce afford to fight this war to its bitter end. We must continue uniting those opposing Loghain, but, as I gather from what you've said, not all oppose him and he has some powerful allies. We have no time to wage a campaign against him nor can we afford the deaths of Fereldans who would help fight the darkspawn. Someone must surrender if Ferelden is to have any chance of defeating the Blight."

"I hope you aren't suggesting it be we who surrender," Alistair quickly said. "Loghain has closed the borders and won't even allow Grey Wardens to cross in order to aid us against the Blight. He seeks to exterminate any Grey Wardens left within Ferelden. Already we've rescued one Warden who was awaiting execution in Fort Drakon after having been condemned as an Orlesian spy. Which, mind you, he was not. Loghain sees everything as some sort of Orlesian plot to take over Ferelden, including the Grey Wardens, who don't answer to any king or country. He thought _Duncan_ to be some sort of Orlesian spy."

That made Eamon snort derisively. "That would be the day. Duncan was no more Orlesian than you or I."

"Yes, well, that should illustrate for you the depths of delusions that Loghain lives under now. He continues to insist that this isn't a Blight, even as the clouds of the Blight advance over southern Ferelden. Lothering has been destroyed by the darkspawn, and who knows what other towns and villages have fallen in the weeks after. Riordan, the Grey Warden we rescued, has gone into the Deep Roads to discover the location of the archdemon. Yet I suspect that were we to put Loghain face to face with the high dragon that is the archdemon, Loghain would declare it an Orlesian spy and that the archdemon was being controlled by Empress Celene herself in a diabolical plot to conquer Ferelden," Alistair said.

Malcolm started laughing. "I'd like to see that. I'd lure the archdemon all the way to him myself if I could see that happen." Then his face quickly became somber. "Arl Eamon, Loghain doesn't see the Blight. Even though he believes he is doing what is right to protect Ferelden, he is dooming Ferelden and possibly all of Thedas with his actions. We can't change his mind, but we can't risk any more of a civil war than what is already happening. The Grey Wardens agree with us, as well."

"To that end," Alistair said, "we need your help. We need you to call a Landsmeet."

Realization of the true scope of the plan the two of them had worked out slowly dawned in Eamon's eyes which, Alistair noticed, were the same blue as Cailan's had been. He'd never noticed that before, that Cailan had the Guerrin blue eyes, and not Maric's deeper blue, as Malcolm had. What an odd thing to notice. "To put you forth as Maric's heir," the arl said.

"Um, well. Yes. Unfortunately, that's our best course of action. As much as I dislike it, we haven't any other choice. We need as many people as we can to fight the darkspawn and a protracted civil war would deprive us of that. The Grey Wardens have given me leave to—"

"Actually, they pretty much ordered it," said Malcolm.

Alistair resisted a sigh. "Ordered me to do as much and assume the throne if need be. Which, apparently, need be."

"Remarkably mature outlook of you, Alistair," Eamon said.

"I've grown up a lot since you last saw me," he managed to say without a hint of sarcasm.

Eamon nodded. "For the better, it would seem. Very well, I will call for a Landsmeet and will send out word as soon as I can. At the Landsmeet, Ferelden can decide who shall rule, one way or another. Then the business of fighting our true foe can begin. It will take some time to recall my forces and organize our allies. I would prefer to wait until that is done before calling the Landsmeet."

"We need the time, anyway," Alistair said. "We have Grey Warden treaties we've been calling in, or trying to, anyway. The Circle of Magi have agreed to help fight the darkspawn when we call for them. We've two more treaties left, one with the dwarves of Orzammar and one with the Dalish. We need to get those troops organized before we can proceed. We need everything set and ready once the Landsmeet determines who will rule. We need all the allies we can get if we are to defeat the horde."

"I agree," said the arl.

"_Speaking_ of the Circle of Magi," Malcolm said from next to Alistair, "I believe Isolde has some things she'd like to tell you."

Isolde fired an arch glare at Malcolm. "That's _Arlessa_ Isolde to you."

Malcolm returned the glare with just as much ire. "You're as much an arlessa as my brother and I are princes. Tell you what, I'll start calling you Arlessa Isolde when you start calling my brother Prince Alistair."

Alistair despaired at his brother's behavior even as he heard Teagan snicker softly behind him before whispering, "That'll be the day."

Eamon sighed and looked at Malcolm without anger, but with resigned frustration. Alistair was well familiar with that particular look. "I trust there is a good explanation for your rudeness to my wife?"

"Go on, tell him," Malcolm said to Isolde.

As Isolde continued to glare at Malcolm, Alistair finally felt his own anger rise. Would she again not take responsibility for anything? Her unwillingness to speak made him finally say to her, "Perhaps you could start with the fact that you so kindly informed my brother that the Maker would prefer to give your family a miracle over his, reminding him of the vile act Arl Howe had committed against his entire family?"

"He tried to hurt me!"

"Oh, _please_," Malcolm said. "I was angry, I wasn't going to _harm_ you, even though you could've hurt me less by stabbing me with a poisoned—"

"Enough!" Eamon declared in the loudest voice he'd used since he'd woken up, holding up both of his hands. He studied his wife. "Tell me what happened. And leave nothing out."

Slowly, and with tears Alistair could only assume were real, Isolde repeated the entirety of what had happened. How Connor was a mage, how she had contracted an apostate tutor to teach Connor how to hide his magic, how it was that mage who poisoned Eamon, how Connor, distraught over his father's illness, had made a deal with a demon. How that demon had nearly possessed Connor, and had nearly destroyed Redcliffe and all of its inhabitants. "And then the First Enchanter of the Circle of Magi came here with other mages and they were able to go into the Fade, slay the demon, and save our son," she finished.

Alistair heard the slight crackle of energy telling him that Morrigan had finally gotten upset enough to react with outward anger. He decided to let her speak, and possibly let her do whatever devious magic she had planned for Isolde, because he trusted her to defend his brother and the rest of them from whatever wrongs the arlessa had done and would do to them. "You would do well to remember 'twas I who went into the Fade, at Malcolm and Alistair's request, to slay the demon that possessed your son. I did not have to do this and they did not have to help you. You continue to take advantage of their kindness by piercing them in the most vulnerable places in their hearts. I will not stand for this," Morrigan said in a cold tone that sent a shiver along Alistair's spine. Thank the Maker she was on his side.

He risked a glance at the witch to see a faint purple sphere beginning to form above her right hand.

"It was Jowan who was responsible for this, you... you _maleficar_," Isolde threw back at Morrigan.

Malcolm stepped menacingly toward Isolde. "She just explained, in truth, that she _helped_ you and your son and you call her a maleficar? Here, I'll remind you just what your beloved Chant of Light declares one to be. It's right there in the first verse of the Canticle of Transfigurations. 'Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones.' This woman _saved your son from a demon_ and you name her accursed? You are the woman who took a blood mage into her employ. You are the one who took Connor's gift and used it against the other children of the Maker. If you had accepted your son's gift for what it was and allowed him the proper training and teaching it takes to master that power, none of this would have happened. None of it. Loghain never would have so easily been able to employ someone of your staff for his deeds. Eamon never would have been poisoned." Malcolm took another step towards Isolde and Alistair went to restrain him. But to his surprise, Morrigan had dropped any magic she had started to summon and placed her hand on Malcolm's forearm to keep him back.

"You say that merely to defend an insult to your witch lover," Isolde said, her voice cold and calculated. She had noticed Morrigan's touch as well.

The more he heard Isolde, the less Alistair thought that Morrigan was truly a bitch.

Malcolm leapt, tearing his arm from Morrigan's restraining hand.

Anticipating his brother losing his temper, Alistair caught him with both of his arms, halting his movement towards a now-cowering Isolde, even as Zevran had jumped from his chair to help contain Malcolm.

"Maker's mercy," Wynne said, her eyes filled with sympathy directed toward Malcolm. "We will take him outside, for his own safety."

It didn't pass Alistair's notice that Wynne had mentioned nothing of Isolde's safety, nor did he think it'd passed anyone else's.

Zevran took Malcolm's arms by the biceps and led him out of the room, casting his own seething glares back at Isolde in his friend's defense. Wynne and Morrigan followed, their looks equally as acid, but Leliana remained, retaking her chair by the door, Gunnar sitting beside her, occasionally emitting low growls in Isolde's direction.

Eamon's eyes stayed on the doorway until the door closed then he looked at Teagan. "Is this true?"

Teagan blinked. "Which part? If you refer to Isolde's responsibility in these matters, then yes, brother, it is true. As is her mistreatment of Malcolm." He glared at Isolde himself. "I would have expected you to show more sympathy to a boy who has lost his entire family," he said quietly. "And if not sympathy then at least respect for his losses. Instead, you torture him with whatever information you can find to use against him."

Then Alistair remembered another important bit of information he knew Arl Eamon wouldn't like. "Oh, I forgot, she also had Jowan tortured. Thought you should know."

Eamon turned and stared at Alistair, eyes wide in disbelief.

In her husband's silence, Isolde continued to argue with her brother-in-law. "He accused me—"

Teagan's face became red as he started to lose his temper as well. "He didn't accuse you of anything. He named you responsible for actions that you have committed. Actions that you insist on denying, on taking any responsibility for. You weren't in that village, Isolde. You didn't see their faces as they were beset by the horrible nature of beings that demon released upon them. You didn't have to fight the undead bodies of people you have known your entire life. You didn't have to sit outside the castle and wonder if your brother and nephew were alive or if everyone in that castle were dead. You didn't see the eyes of the people _you_ are supposed to protect when they thought themselves abandoned and unprotected. You were the one who caused all of it. And yet you can't accept the responsibility of your actions. Instead, you continued to heap insults and cast aspersions at the people who helped you when they had no obligation to do so."

Alistair knew he'd had _some_ sort of obligation to help Teagan and Eamon, but the bann had directed such a fine tirade at Isolde that he felt no compulsion to speak up.

Then Isolde started to tremble. "I am sorry," she said, in a broken voice Alistair had thought he'd never heard from the woman.

"What?" both Teagan and Alistair said.

"I forget, at times, that this is not Orlais."

"What, did the smell of wet dog give that away?" Alistair said before he could stop himself. Maker, he was starting to sound like his brother, or like himself before all of this had started.

If she heard it, Isolde chose not to respond to his comment. "In Orlais, the nobility does not take responsibility for bad things that happen that they may have been responsible for. They would be cast into disgrace and sometimes even assassinated."

Alistair shot a quick glance in Leliana's direction, who gave him a discreet nod in confirmation. Interesting. Isolde had told the truth for once.

"It is not like that in Ferelden," Eamon said softly, the first words he'd spoken in a while. "For one, you would certainly not be assassinated. And it is more disgrace to foist responsibility of your actions onto someone else. Jowan is partly responsible, yes, as is Loghain, but your own actions play a large part in the tragedy that occurred while I was ill."

"I..." Isolde stopped speaking, falling into silent tears.

Eamon looked at Teagan and Alistair. "Please. Leave us."

Teagan gave Alistair a small shrug at his questioning look, and they left the room with Leliana and Gunnar trailing behind them. They found the others, sans Morrigan, waiting in one of the sitting rooms. Alistair frowned. "Where's Morrigan?"

"Went for a walk to calm herself," Malcolm said quietly. Gunnar had trotted to sit next to Malcolm and nudged his head underneath his master's hand. Malcolm gave him an idle scratch behind the ears.

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Morrigan? Calming herself? I imagine it must involve setting kittens on fire or something." But the look Malcolm gave him was so despairing that Alistair immediately apologized. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Comments like that just happen with me. You should know, you do it, too."

"Yes, well, when she sets you on fire, you won't hear me objecting," Malcolm replied, but Alistair noted the forgiveness in his brother's eyes. He still found it astonishing that it had been Morrigan who'd had to go walk to calm herself while Malcolm, who had looked to be much more furious, sat calmly by the fire. Yet despite his demeanor, Alistair could tell something was deeply bothering his brother.

"So what happened after we left in our little huff?" Zevran asked. "Ferelden politics are beginning to be most intriguing."

Alistair sighed. "Bann Teagan lost his temper at Isolde and shouted at her, and then she started crying—"

"She'd been crying the entire time," Malcolm said. "That doesn't change anything. It's just manipulation."

"I believe this time it may have been real," Leliana said. "She spoke of Orlais and Orlesian politics and what she said was true. If the same had occurred in Orlais had occurred here, it would be remarkable fodder for the Game." At confused looks from everyone but Zevran, Leliana explained, "The Orlesian Game of Intrigue. Among the aristocracy, it is a pattern of social one-upmanship consisting of insinuation, larceny, assassinations, and the like. In her fear, she must have confused Ferelden for having the same sort of game and her actions would have condemned her in such a game. At best, she would have been assassinated. At worst, she would have been shamed and cast out of the aristocracy."

Alistair frowned. "At _best_ she would have been killed? That would be the preferable outcome?"

The bard looked away from Malcolm and to Alistair. "Yes. You have seen how prideful she is, no? She would rather die than suffer the shame. Yet she finds herself still alive and I wonder at how much of her words are to provoke Malcolm into killing her."

"You can't seriously believe I would kill her," Malcolm said. "Or hurt her, for that matter."

Alistair crossed his arms. "I don't know, you seemed pretty determined back there."

His brother rolled his eyes. "I was angry, not stupid."

"Some would say that those are not necessarily separate things," Wynne said.

"Can we get back to Isolde and her stupidity, please? Or the fact that she still hasn't taken responsibility for her actions? I doubt she's truly feeling bad about what she did. Instead, merely bad about not being successfully able to blame it on someone else," said Malcolm, turning to look at Leliana.

Leliana's brow furrowed in thought. "I am not sure that is what is going on anymore. I know Orlesians. She may actually feel sorry for what she has done."

Malcolm scoffed. "I'll believe it when I hear her apologize and mean it. Which, by the way, if any of you are wondering, I don't see that happening."

"You might be surprised," said Leliana.

"You're right, I would be."

Alistair went to reply, but the door opened and Eamon peeked in. "Alistair, Malcolm, may I speak with you in my study?"

Alistair nodded his assent, while Malcolm gave a listless shrug and rose from his chair. He made a short motion to Gunnar and the hound remained in his place. They found Eamon sitting in the chair behind his desk, somehow looking more weary than he had when he'd awakened from his coma. Alistair had a pretty good idea that it had nothing to do with his illness, not anymore. After taking a seat in one of the chairs, Alistair asked, "You wanted to see us?" He glanced around the room as he waited for the answer, noting that Malcolm was doing the same, and probably looking for Isolde like he was. No sign of her. Good. Less yelling, then.

"Yes," Eamon said to Alistair before turning to Malcolm. "I apologize for my wife's treatment of you. And I thank you for not doing any harm to her in return."

"Andraste's flaming sword! I was not going to hurt her!" Malcolm said, looking up at the ceiling in exasperation. He squinted as he considered something then he brought his eyes back down to look at Eamon. "Though, Morrigan might have. She's much more short-tempered than I am. You should thank her later."

Eamon drummed his fingers on his desk briefly. "Yes, about Morrigan..."

Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "About Morrigan what?"

Alistair put his hand over his face. This wasn't going to be good, he just knew it.

"Is what my wife said true?"

His brother sighed. "No. I thought I already said that. Morrigan is not a maleficar, no matter how many people think otherwise. She doesn't kick puppies, punch kittens, or use blood magic."

The arl sat back in his chair and briefly pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not what I'm referring to. You are Alistair's brother and Maric's son. You will be held up to as much scrutiny as Alistair. I need to know if what my wife said is true. Are you sharing a bed with Morrigan?"

Malcolm gaped at him.

"I see." Eamon set his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. "I hate to say this, but you must end it."

"What?" Malcolm asked, the shock at the arl commanding him what to do in his personal life quite evident.

Alistair resisted squirming and really wished he wasn't there. In fact, he'd rather be fighting a band of nice darkspawn right about now.

Eamon's gaze at Malcolm remained steady. "A relationship with a mage, not to mention an apostate, as it stands right now, is a threat to Ferelden."

"A threat to Ferelden," Malcolm repeated.

"Yes. We are putting you and your brother forth as Maric's heirs at the coming Landsmeet. You know this. You helped come up with the plan. If the Landsmeet found out that you are involved with a mage, they might go back to Loghain's side even though you aren't the one being put on the throne. Do not underestimate the fear people have of mages. Especially apostates. You must end this relationship."

"No."

Alistair blinked and shrank into his chair. He'd heard that particular 'no' before. The only way he'd gotten past it was by pulling rank and he didn't think that would fly between Malcolm and Eamon. And if you got into the technicalities, even bypassing the whole bastard prince thing, Malcolm was the last Cousland heir, which made him the heir of a teyrnir, and therefore of a higher noble rank than Eamon. But he didn't think Malcolm would even think of either of those situations. This reaction was instinctive.

"Excuse me?"

"No."

Eamon's expression darkened. "No?"

Malcolm stood up. "My answer is no. I love her." With that, Malcolm left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

After Eamon stared at the door for a few moments, he turned to Alistair. "Do you think he really loves her?"

Alistair dragged his eyes away from the door and to Eamon. "Unfortunately, yes. And what's more unfortunate is that I think she loves him in return. It makes for quite a dilemma."

"If I can't convince him to end it, Alistair, then you must."

He stared at Eamon in disbelief. "What? You want me to convince... me to ask... you realize that Morrigan is a witch, right? That she could set me on fire for even thinking of interfering with whatever is between the two of them? Besides that, Malcolm and I have already had fistfights and fantastic arguments over a number of other things. I'd really like some time to get along with my newfound brother before I go making him irrevocably furious with me."

Eamon sighed. "We have some time yet. Perhaps it will end naturally and it will not come to that. If not, and I cannot convince him, you must intervene."

"You're serious? You'd rather have him not speaking to me for the rest of our lives? Did you even hear the bit about me being set on fire? Or turned into a toad?"

"It's in the best interest of Ferelden," Eamon said, his eyes drifting to the closed door. "I'm afraid that if he feels strong enough about her, he'll choose her over Ferelden, over Thedas, even over stopping the Blight."

"I doubt that. You haven't seen him fight darkspawn."

The arl looked at him again, his eyes filled with compassion and wisdom. "I am not doing this to torture the lad. I do not wish to see him hurt, but I have lived much longer than either of you. And I know that love makes one do a lot of things they may regret later. If it truly is love, then nothing else will matter to them, and much hangs in the balance."


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

**Malcolm**

Surprisingly, hearing the door to Eamon's study click shut behind him felt as good as if he'd slammed it. His anger at Eamon's demand had made him admit something out loud that he hadn't been ready to—and he wanted to run back into the study and snatch away what he'd left hanging in the air. But he couldn't. What had been said had been said and there was nothing he could do about it now. As he stalked back to the room he'd been given for the night, he realized that part of the reason why he was so angry was because Eamon was _right_. And it rankled. The Bannorn discovering that the heir's younger brother was involved with a witch could possibly be as damning as finding out who his and Alistair's mother really was.

What must be done.

But he couldn't. Not when he remembered how Morrigan's eyes had looked to him. It would crush her as much as it would crush him. There had to be a way to reconcile the two, yet no matter how he looked at it, there didn't seem a way, unless he were to denounce any claim to the throne, to which Alistair, and most certainly Eamon, would strenuously object. The Landsmeet was a long way off, though. Perhaps a solution would appear in the meantime. That's what he could hope for, and that Eamon would leave him alone until something worked itself out. There was something he could do, though, to help protect Alistair and the throne. The letters. He could find the rest of the letters from Fiona and take them to Morrigan to burn. A concession, really, but something to help allay his guilt over what could be taken as his selfishness.

Then again, he wasn't even sure where Morrigan was at the moment. Her anger had been considerable, even more so when he realized that not only did the magic crackle around her fingers, but that her entire body shook as she willed herself to do no one any bodily harm. She had excused herself and left the castle, presumably to shapeshift and run off the furious energy. There was no telling when she would return, and a small part of him even wondered if she would at all, and he knew without a doubt that Eamon hoped she never would. In his room, he opened the oilskin with the letters and shuffled through them quickly, taking each one with a Fiona reference and putting the others back into the envelope. Letters in hand, he opened the door with the intent of going into Morrigan's room. Instead, he walked straight into Arl Eamon, the arl's hand poised to knock on the door. The impact knocked the letters to the stone floor in a shower of papers. Malcolm scowled and bent to pick them up. "If you came here to make me change my mind, it won't work," he said.

Eamon sighed and knelt down to help. "I'm here on another matter, one we didn't get to before you..."

"Stormed out of the room in a huff? Stalked out in a snit?" Hopefully, he could distract Eamon from questioning him over the letters. They were in cipher, sure, but Eamon wielded guilt like a lot of other older men and women Malcolm had met—with deadly effectiveness. "Strode out in a fit of pique?"

The arl held the few letters he'd collected and studied them. "What are these?"

Damn. His distraction techniques apparently needed a little work. Either that or all that time interacting with Maric and Alistair had made Eamon immune to excessively chatty sarcasm. Malcolm looked down at the papers and back up at Eamon. "Um... letters?" he offered, and then stood up.

Eamon stood as well. "Ones in a cipher, so they are sensitive, I imagine."

"Yes. Grey Warden matters. Very sensitive. If I could just take those—" He reached for them and came up short when Eamon moved then away slightly. Malcolm narrowed his eyes. What was this man playing at?

"We've been decoding them," Alistair said, walking up behind the both of them and snatching the letters out of Eamon's hand. "Looking for information that could help us contact the other Grey Wardens and whatever else they have to give us in terms of fighting the darkspawn."

_Please don't look at them, please don't look at them_, Malcolm chanted in his head. Prayed, more like. Ugly wasn't nearly a long enough word to describe how things would go if Alistair read even the tiniest bit of one. "Yes, well, if you'd just give those back, I could get to it."

Alistair frowned and looked down at the letters he'd taken. "Who is—"

Then the papers drifted out of Alistair's hands and into Morrigan's, who had silently appeared behind all of them as they spoke in the corridor. "I will take those," she said, the papers coming to a rest within her hands. Then she continued down the hallway as if nothing had happened. Within seconds, a fire appeared in her hands and reduced the letters to ash.

Malcolm held in a sigh of relief.

Alistair stared after her. "What did you do that for? You just incinerated important Grey Warden property!"

The witch stopped and turned around. "It needed to be done."

"Who are you to decide that?" Alistair's voice gained in volume. Yes, he was working himself into an outrage, like when he'd discovered the treaties gone in the Wilds.

"I asked her to," Malcolm said quietly, before Alistair entirely lost his temper with Morrigan, who'd only been acting on Malcolm's request. Though he suspected she wanted to take the blame so his relationship with his brother wouldn't be more strained, he couldn't let her take responsibility for something that had been his decision. After all, it's what they were all so angry with Isolde for doing. Well, that and being a compete bitch, but it was hard to be sanctimonious while calling someone that.

Morrigan rolled her eyes, threw up her hands, and strode off. Yes, his suspicions had been correct and she was now angry with him, too. Fantastic.

Alistair ignored Morrigan's departure and rounded on Malcolm. "Why would you tell her to do that?"

"Because they contained sensitive information, like I said. And I asked, not told, because we all know how well it goes when you _tell_ Morrigan to do anything."

His brother raised an eyebrow expectantly. "And were you going to share said information with me?"

Malcolm found that he couldn't look Alistair in the eye. Not over this. "No."

"What? No? You have to be joking. You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not joking. I wasn't going to tell you and I'm still not."

"Then I order you to tell me. It's a Grey Warden matter and I need to know."

"No." Why couldn't the ground underneath him open up and swallow him? And why, whenever he wanted to, which seemed to be more and more lately, did it never, ever do so? Was it too much to ask the Maker? In the stunned silence that followed, Malcolm heard a door open, and then another door. Great, they would have an audience now. Why was Eamon at his door in the first place? To try to convince him yet again to leave Morrigan? He turned to the arl as Alistair continued to fume quietly. "What were you doing at my door, anyway?"

Eamon looked uncomfortably between the two brothers. "I was going to tell you what was going to happen with my wife, but I see that can be left for another time. Perhaps we should continue this conversation in a more private setting."

"It's nothing new," Malcolm said, glancing down the hallway and seeing Leliana, Zevran, and Wynne stepping out of their rooms. "I mean, they've all heard us argue before. It's commonplace, really. Next thing you know, darkspawn will show up because they always interrupt any arguments we have. You might want to alert your guards."

"Alert my—this isn't a time to be kidding around!" Eamon said, motioning toward the door to Malcolm's room. "Now, let's step inside your room and talk this out. I'm sure you think you have a good reason not to tell Alistair this information, but from the looks of it, it seems it would be important enough information that he would need to know."

"Trust me, he doesn't need to know. No one does. Even I don't."

"What gives you the idea that no one else needs to know? How could you even think that? You assume too much, young man. You might think you know everything, but you don't, and you can't even fathom to—"

"Arl Eamon, if I may?"

Three heads swung around to stare at Wynne, who had dared interrupt Eamon's tirade.

Eamon slightly bowed his head in acknowledgement. "Enchanter Wynne, I'm sure you mean well, but this does not concern you."

"It does if I told the young man in question not to relay any of the information you are trying to pry out of him. Arl Eamon, if you expect your plans for Alistair to take the Ferelden throne to be successful, you will forget anything you know about those letters ever having existed. That goes for you, too, Alistair. While you might think that Malcolm knows nothing of the true machinations of the political world because he is not old enough to have seen their effects, you cannot say the same for me. If you want to blame anyone, then you can blame me and not this young man, who was merely following my advice. And if you knew what I knew and my position, you would not hesitate to act the same way. You have to trust me when I tell you that you do not want to know. That you do not need to know. That the less people who know, the better, or the future of Ferelden and perhaps all of Thedas could be in peril."

"You told him not to tell me?" Alistair asked, his voice a near whisper out of shock.

She nodded, her face drawn up in sadness. "Regretfully, yes. And I will not change my mind. You may even refuse to travel with me any further if you want, but I will not budge on this matter. Your safety and the safety of this nation and this world are too important."

"I couldn't ask you to leave, you know that. And I trust you and your opinion," Alistair said. "I just... it's really that bad?"

"Yes. I'm afraid so. Believe me, if I could tell you, I would. But I cannot, so please don't ask me again. Or Malcolm. He acts as he does at my request and I ask that you not hold that against him."

"If..." Alistair cast a dubious look back at Malcolm, who met his look, knowing he probably looked as forlorn as he felt. "If you say so, Wynne."

Eamon scowled. "I do not like being kept out of the loop. Especially when I've been out of it for so long. But... I understand. I suspect from the tone of your voice and your words that you are correct, and were I you, I would act the same way. Still... I don't like it."

"Neither do I," Malcolm said. "But it has to be done." Immediately, he regretted his words, because they would only make Eamon recall his advice from earlier. Advice which Malcolm highly disagreed with. He braced himself for another argument with Eamon about Morrigan.

"There are many things that have to be done," Eamon said. "But we have time to see that they're all accomplished." He turned to Wynne again. "Thank you for speaking up. I'm afraid we might have pushed Malcolm too hard for information he could not have given."

Wynne nodded and went back to her room.

Malcolm held in another sigh of relief, even as Eamon turned to him. "As for what I was here for originally, I came to tell you about what's to be done regarding Isolde."

Several scenarios went through Malcolm's head, none of them anything the arl would probably like. They all involved applications of fire in uncomfortable ways. Though, every application of fire tended to be uncomfortable. Burns were like that. "Which is?"

Eamon encouraged Alistair and Malcolm to retreat to Malcolm's room. Once they were inside, he said, "After this war has ended, she will be taking some... time... for reflection and prayer and even history lessons at the Chantry. She hopes to learn better of herself and what it means to be Fereldan, particularly Fereldan nobility. And when the Circle is in a proper state, she will spend some time there, as well, to learn not to fear mages, nor to be ashamed that our son is one. And she will be making a proper apology to you and to our people. One that is sincere."

He didn't believe it. He could believe that the woman, who claimed to be pious, would attempt all of those things, and perhaps learn a great deal. But to make a sincere apology to him and the people of Redcliffe? Highly unlikely. "Is she even capable of that?"

"I realize she has been incredibly rude to you—"

"Rude? Arl Eamon, it has gone beyond rude. She..." He stalked around the small room, wanting nothing more than to hit something. Remembering her words brought images back of that night in Highever, finding his nephew dead on the floor in his bedroom, run through with a sword. And his sister-in-law had been right next to him, her hands sliced nearly into ribbons from when she had tried to stop Oren's murderer from killing her son. And the flames had burned through everything, every corridor, the soldiers pouring in, his father's blood on the floor, blood on every floor, all of the stones in Highever castle stained with it...

"Malcolm?"

He blinked and found himself staring at the fire. "What?"

It'd been Alistair who had said his name. "I... nothing, nevermind."

"If you would excuse me, Alistair, Arl Eamon, I think I would like some time alone."

Both of the other men left silently. Malcolm sat in the only chair in the room and stared at the fire, remembering everything, until he fell asleep.

The next morning as they ate breakfast, Alistair and Arl Eamon kept casting looks at him. Malcolm acted as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't relived his family dying over and over again the night before. After the entirely too quiet morning meal, Malcolm found Alistair so he could talk to him about where they'd go next. They needed to get moving again before they got too complacent. As they'd been saying, there was much that had to be done. He just hoped his brother would be amenable to his request. He found Alistair in Eamon's office, studying a map of Ferelden. Good call, that.

"I think we should go try to find the Dalish next," he started with as Gunnar settled himself in front of the warm, cheery fire.

Alistair slowly looked up at Malcolm. "Any particular reason why?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Any particular reason why not?"

"According to this map, we might be closer to Orzammar than trying to find the Dalish." Alistair pointed at various locations on the map to illustrate. "If they're in the Brecilian Forest and not the Hinterlands, then we're closer to Orzammar and we should probably go there first."

Malcolm sighed heavily and flopped into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Of course it wouldn't be easy. And it wasn't like they could just take a small detour and he'd be all 'oh, look, there's Flemeth, by the way we need to kill her' without any prior explanation. "Truth be told, I have a favor to ask."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." At his brother's knowing look, he relented. "Okay, there's a few things wrong, but I'm not here to talk about most of those. Just one thing, actually. You remember that grimoire thing that I found in the Circle Tower?"

Alistair sat down in Eamon's chair. "You mean the one you stole?"

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't steal it. I simply took it back to... I removed... fine, I stole it. Whatever. That isn't the important thing, here. What's important is that we need to go back to the Korcari Wilds and kill Flemeth."

His brother stared at him, his mouth slightly open. "What?"

He really needed to think these things through and go about them differently instead of just announcing the end result. Morrigan had done a good job explaining everything and he realized he really should have followed her example. "Let me back up."

"Please do."

"So, in the grimoire, Morrigan discovered how Flemeth has kept alive all these centuries. Basically, she raises a daughter once she grows old, and once the daughter is old enough and powerful enough, Flemeth takes the body as her own. And nothing of the daughter remains. It's just Flemeth, over and over, century after century." He wondered if Flemeth's other daughters had been anything like Morrigan. If they were as hurt inside from Flemeth's treatment, if they saw power as the only thing that could protect them from the world, if they didn't trust themselves to love because in the end, it could break them.

"Morrigan told you this?"

"It certainly wasn't Flemeth."

Alistair looked at him closely, trying to discern how his brother felt. Malcolm returned the look, allowing his brother to see his true feelings. How much he trusted Morrigan in this, and how much he wanted, needed, to protect her. "I take it you believe her."

"Yes. It's as good as explanation as any. Flemeth has lived for centuries. Everyone knows the tales and all tales, though they can be stories or myth or legends, have some amount truth in them, however small." He sat up and leaned forward. "This is important to me. I can't let her die. And if we don't kill Flemeth, she'll die. We're all she has."

"And this has what to do with the Blight? Weren't you the one who was arguing that we shouldn't try and battle a high dragon because it could kill us and therefore all the Grey Wardens in Ferelden, making it so the archdemon couldn't be killed before it got to the rest of Thedas? And Flemeth is just as much, if not more, dangerous."

Malcolm sat back, hands on his lap. "Are you really throwing that back at me?"

"I'm bringing up the reason you've used previously. Flemeth could kill us just as easily as a high dragon. More easily, probably. She's cruel and evil and wicked and certainly a maleficar." Alistair didn't seem to be angry, though, Malcolm could tell. Nor was he exactly being confrontational, either. His questions were questions and nothing more. Seeking to gain extra information in order to make a proper decision. He wasn't agreeing to it straight away, but he wasn't rejecting the idea out of hand, either.

"If I put aside my personal feelings on the matter, there's still the threat of Flemeth to consider. What if she possesses Morrigan somehow as we travel? What would we do then? I know you don't like her, but she is a great help to us. Her offensive capabilities with magic are unmatched. She's getting to be a pretty good healer, too, even Wynne says so. And she even protects us from people like Isolde. That has to get some good marks from you, I would think. Flemeth taking over her body would change all that. We would have Flemeth and not Morrigan." He looked away from Alistair and towards the fire. "Morrigan would be gone. Forever." A pain lanced through his chest at that idea.

"You know," Alistair said slowly, "at one point in all of this, I would have thought Morrigan being gone would be a favor granted to us by the Maker. But, not any longer. Flemeth makes my skin want to crawl straight off my body. And the idea that Flemeth could somehow just take over Morrigan... somehow I don't think Flemeth would defend us from Isolde like Morrigan did. I half expected her to do something magically awful to the woman and the other half of me wanted her to."

"So we'll go?"

Alistair grimaced. "Yes. We'll just find the Dalish after that then circle back and go to Orzammar. I don't want the possibility of Flemeth just swooping in and replacing Morrigan hanging over our heads. I imagine that would go rather badly. And," he gave Malcolm a pointed look, "somehow I have a feeling that if I said no, you'd go off by yourself to try and deal with Flemeth. That would go badly, too, I think. Then Riordan would come back from the Deep Roads and Orlais and ask 'where'd your brother go?' and I'd have to try and explain that somehow I'd lost you or something, and he'd give me that disapproving look like Duncan had and I'd feel bad, there would be tears and it wouldn't be pretty. I'd like to avoid that."

Malcolm allowed himself a small smile. "I wonder if you'll ever start giving that look. If you keep acting all senior-Warden-like, you'll probably develop it."

"Maker, I hope not." He ran a hand over his face. "Don't even joke about something like that. You'd think I was growing up or something. I rather liked following. It had a certain safety to it, you know? If there was a mistake made, it was someone else's fault. You could just hide behind whoever was in charge and pull faces and they'd give you disapproving looks and you'd just look all sorry, and then continue on your merry way. I miss that sort of thing."

"I think those days are long past," Malcolm said as he stood up. "Well, unless Riordan takes charge again when he comes back, which I imagine he will. At least where Grey Warden things are concerned, like, you know the Blight and killing darkspawn and that pesky archdemon. As for the prince thing, well, that's all up to you."

"And you. And Eamon, if he has his way. I'm not sure how much latitude we're supposed to give him. I mean, he knows more about this stuff than you or I do, that much is certain. But we can't be his puppets, either. People will recognize it if we let him make all the decisions. Yet, neither of us can gather the Bannorn for a Landsmeet. Loghain won't, not again, anyway, from what Teagan said about the last Landsmeet he called after Ostagar. The only other person with enough influence who could have was..." he trailed off.

"I know," Malcolm said quietly. "Teyrn Cousland would've been a much better option than even Arl Eamon. My brother told me that when the Landsmeet was called after Maric died that the Landsmeet wasn't sure if they wanted to give the throne to Cailan. Instead, some were saying they would offer it to my father, but he turned it down and said that a Theirin had to remain on the throne, as it was the first Theirin who united all the Bannorn and made Ferelden into the nation it is. I couldn't figure out why, back then, what would make the Bannorn not want to give Cailan the throne, but after having met him and after Ostagar, I can see why."

Alistair nodded and started rolling up the map. "Yes. He desperately wanted his glorious glory for glory's sake. Though, I suppose he had a lot to live up to, given that Maric was called Maric the Savior and chased out those awful Orlesians. What could Cailan really have done to equal that?"

"Stop a Blight. That'd do it."

"Except he wasn't a Grey Warden, and those are the folks who stop Blights." Alistair found the empty storage tube and slid the map into it. "You know, I bet he would've given anything to take your place when you had to Join at Ostagar. When you were passed out from your Joining, I asked Duncan if he thought Cailan would survive the Joining. He said he thought Cailan would. We talked a bit about the battle strategy, too, or lack thereof, really. While we could've won the battle at Ostagar, it would've been bloody no matter what. Duncan wanted to wait, to draw our forces back to another defendable position while we waited for Eamon's troops to arrive, for the Orlesian Wardens and their support troops to arrive, too. But between Cailan's need to prove himself gloriously, and Loghain's mistrust of anything to do with Orlais, those plans were doomed from the start."

Malcolm nodded, idly tapping on the back of the chair in front of him. "Which I think is part of why the Landsmeet after Maric's death wasn't sure about giving Cailan the throne. But in the end, it wasn't Cailan alone that threw everything at Ostagar awry, Loghain had a large part in it, too. He's been a general for a long time, he's seen war and how it works. He must have known the battle would've been messy even if he'd charged. But his mistrust made him act stupidly and not wait for reinforcements. Even still he won't allow reinforcements in. Why couldn't either of them listen to Duncan? It isn't like he was a Grey Warden or Commander of the Grey or anything like that. Oh wait, he was. Instead, Loghain ignored him, which made Cailan ignore him, which made it so both Duncan and Cailan died."

Alistair took the tube with the map in it and hurled it into the fire. Malcolm watched in astonishment at the outburst as the tube flared and started to burn. The fire wrapped both ends of the tube, slowly crawling to cover it entirely. It split into two and dropped into the hot coals below. "That was... symbolic," Malcolm said. "Burning all of Ferelden to keep it from the Blight? Is that what that was?"

"I just feel like they died for nothing," Alistair said in a near whisper, his eyes focused on the rapidly burning tube. "We couldn't even manage a victory at Ostagar. It would've meant something, if we had won the battle, even if they had died. Duncan said that if we didn't stop the horde at Ostagar, that it would overrun all of Ferelden. And that's what it's doing. We had to burn Lothering to try and stop the taint from Blighting more of the land, but I don't think it did any good. I'm sure we'll see evidence of that when we go back into the Wilds. The valley that holds most of the Bannorn is where most of the farmlands are. If we don't stop the horde from getting there, everyone will end up starving. And even if we moved as fast as we could, I don't think we can gather up enough armies to deal with the horde sooner." He looked up from the fire and at Malcolm, the flames reflecting in his eyes. "If we don't stop this Blight, if we don't kill this archdemon, then Duncan and Cailan will have died for nothing."

"We'll stop it."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because we have to."

Alistair gave him a dubious look. "That's it?"

"It's that or darkness and despair. And there's far too much of that going around already."

Gunnar lifted his head, barked, trotted over to Alistair and shoved his muzzle under Alistair's hand.

Malcolm pointed at him. "See? The dog agrees with me and mabari are revered in Ferelden. You can't disagree with that sort of reasoning. Especially if you're going to be king. Imagine the King of Ferelden not putting stock in the intelligence of a mabari? That would be quite the scandal. The Orlesians would finally say Fereldans are approaching sanity, but the Bannorn would be in an uproar. Not to mention Gunnar would be displeased with you. And he could bite your hand off."

To illustrate his master's point, Gunnar took Alistair's hand in his mouth without biting down. Alistair jerked his arm back. "Okay, okay, I get your point. No more despairing for the poor bastard prince. I guess when I get to feeling down I'll play fetch with a wardog or something. That will make everything better. Or at least keep my hand attached to my body."

"Glad you could see reason. I didn't want to have to explain to Eamon why your hand had gone missing."


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

**Malcolm**

The closer they got to Flemeth's hut, the more Malcolm's fingertips went numb, and the more he realized that this might have been a bad idea. Morrigan had remained behind with their gear as they'd discussed, and Gunnar had stayed with her. The rest of them, following directions Morrigan had given them, crept cautiously toward the ramshackle building that Flemeth, and once Morrigan, called home. The Korcari Wilds had gotten colder since their last trip to Ostagar and snow drifted against the ruins of towers and grand buildings in the vast swampland. Zevran and Leliana were the only two who could tread silently through the crusty snow, and even they walked slower than usual in order to stay quiet.

Around another bend, and there was the hut. The collapsed tower was no more and no less collapsed than before. The pond near it had ice forming along its edges, yet the ground near the hut was clear of snow and was instead covered by green grass.

"A powerful mage lives here," Wynne said quietly.

"I think more than a mere mage," Alistair said. "Abomination might even be too weak of a word for her."

They stepped into the clearing and there stood Flemeth, silvery hair askew and unbrushed. A breeze brushed in from the pond, barely moving the earth tone materials of Flemeth's threadbare robes. "And so you return," she said, amusement riding in her rough-edged voice. "Lovely Morrigan has at last found someone willing to dance to her tune. Such enchanting music she plays, wouldn't you say?"

Yes, of course Flemeth would be expecting them. He should have expected nothing else, himself. Since it had been he who'd convinced Alistair and the others into this confrontation, Malcolm stepped forward. "I should dance to your tune, instead?"He didn't particularly want to dance to anyone's tune, but if he had to dance, he preferred Morrigan's over this woman's. If she were even a woman at all, which he doubted. Demon, spirit, ancient Alamarri god, even. Something old and powerful and dangerous.

"Why dance at all? Why not sing?" Flemeth cackled at her own joke and it set Malcolm's teeth on edge. "What has Morrigan told you, hmm? What little plan has she hatched this time?"

"She knows how you extend your unnatural lifespan." He wasn't even sure why he was bothering to talk with this woman. He knew he should just kill her and get it over with, but it was almost like when he'd felt compelled to read those letters. There was more information to be had and information was important. Information could be as powerful as any well-honed weapon.

Flemeth nodded and still didn't move from her spot. "That she does. The question is, do you? Ah, but it is an old, old story. One that Flemeth has heard before... and even told." She extended her hand and raised it, palm up. "Let us skip to the ending, shall we? Do you slay the old wretch as Morrigan bids? Or does the tale take a different turn?"

There couldn't be a different turn. Flemeth couldn't be left alive and certainly couldn't be trusted. He knew Morrigan wasn't a maleficar, but Flemeth? She most assuredly was. She would use Morrigan, she would use him, she would use all at her disposal to further her own needs. No. Nothing else could be done. Morrigan had to be there, with him, to defeat this Blight. He knew it in his heart, in his very soul. "I need Morrigan. I have no choice in this."

The witch scoffed. "Choice. There is power in choices, boy, as there is in lies. I shall give you one of each. Morrigan wishes my grimoire? Take it as a trophy. Tell her I am slain."

"Lying to Morrigan," Alistair muttered behind him, "now _that_ seems like a great idea."

Malcolm raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Do you really think she will believe that?"

Flemeth answered him first with a slight shrug. Then, "We believe what we want to believe. It's all we ever do."

Talking with Flemeth always gave him a headache. Aphorism after aphorism, as if she knew nothing but those and her cackling. But he couldn't stop his curiosity. "And what happens to you?"

"I go," Flemeth said simply, the first time she'd spoken that plainly since they'd shown up at her hut, extending back to before his Joining. "Perhaps I surprise Morrigan one day, or I may simply watch. It would be interesting to see what she does with her freedom. Enlightening, even. Would you give an old woman that?"

His fingers flexed at his sides and he heard Alistair shuffle a bit behind him, readying himself for the coming fight. "So you can surprise Morrigan later by stealing her body? No. I can't let that happen."

Flemeth sighed, as if this entire confrontation had been an exercise in futility. Which, in a way, it was. "Shame. What will it be then?"

"There is no other choice. You must die." His hand moved back and he drew his sword as he slung on his shield. Behind him, he heard the others arm themselves. The distinct ringing of Alistair removing his sword form its scabbard, the creaking of Leliana's bow as she nocked an arrow, the sliding of fingers on a mage's staff as Wynne prepared, the slightest movement of air as Zevran disappeared into the shadows.

Flemeth watched them all, and then smiled. "It is a dance poor Flemeth knows well. Let us see if she remembers the steps. Come. She will earn what she takes. I'd have it no other way."

The air sizzled and a white flash hit their retinas. When their vision returned, Flemeth had gone and in her stead stood a high dragon. Its iridescent scales danced in the sunlight, various shades of red and purple, wrapping the supple movements of the dragon's muscle in a beautiful skin.

"A dragon? Really?" Alistair said. "You realize the irony of this, Malcolm, right? Wasn't it you who wanted to avoid fighting a high dragon?"

Malcolm kept his eyes on the dragon as she stomped on the grassy ground underneath her, daring them to come forward. "I thought we all wanted to avoid fighting a high dragon. I don't recall anyone else trying to make the dragon attack us."

Alistair stepped up next to him, dropping his shield into a defensive position. "Don't ruin the ironic moment. Let me enjoy it."

"You can enjoy it all we want after we're not dead from this dragon." Then Malcolm started to run straight toward the dragon.

"Since when are you such an optimist?" Alistair shouted, and then followed right behind him.

Leliana climbed to the first roof of the hut, while Wynne found herself a spot as far away from the dragon as possible, but still within range to do damage to Flemeth and heal the others. Flemeth met the charge from the two warriors by swinging her massive front legs and slamming into each of them, sending them to their backs. She followed that up with a stream of fire, each of them holding their shields to buffet the flames as much as possible. Malcolm could feel the links of his chainmail grow hotter, felt them burning into his arms.

He rolled away and onto his feet, cutting at the dragon's flank before she could stop him. His sword sank deeply into the dragon's muscle with each hit, but it seemed to do no more than irritate her despite the amount of blood oozing from the wounds. Alistair let out a war cry, drawing Flemeth's attention. Malcolm used that moment to flank her and she responded with a kick, sending him crashing into the icy water down the hill. The water gushed everywhere, a cold embrace, sending chills up and down his spine. At the same time, it soothed the burns from the fire heated metal of his chainmail. He briefly thanked the Maker that he'd stuck with heavy chainmail and had yet to try out plate armor. If he'd have been plated, he would've been sucked into the icy mire and drowned in less than a foot of water. Which would've been an incredibly embarrassing way to die. Once he reached the Fade, he never would've heard the end of it.

Malcolm ran back up the hill, water pouring off him in rivulets, shouting all sorts of curses he didn't even know he knew. Alistair paused to check on him, and Flemeth struck in that moment of distraction. She snapped Alistair up between her teeth and bit down. Malcolm heard bones breaking in a sickening crunch, almost the same sound as stepping on hardened snow. "No!" He redoubled his efforts to run back up the hill, shouting invectives at the abomination, sword held out in front of him, ready to strike.

She took to the air to avoid him, the wind too strong for him to resist and it sent him to the ground once again even as he desperately tried to get to his brother. As Malcolm struggled to get to his feet, Flemeth let go of Alistair, caught him again, and then tossed him away to a knoll beyond. He landed in a heap and lay still. When Malcolm looked away from Alistair's limp body and back to Flemeth, he saw Zevran reappear from the shadows, running up the dragon's back, with what looked like a huge grin on his face.

Or a grimace. He couldn't tell with all the blood and fire and scales in the way. Leliana continued firing arrow after arrow. One struck true in Flemeth's eye and the dragon screamed. Malcolm rolled underneath and went for the dragon's soft underbelly, slicing it open as he slid. Above, Zevran made it to the dragon's head and plunged both his sword and dagger as far into her head as he could, past the hilts and into the skull and the brain beyond. Malcolm ran out from under the writhing dragon.

The dragon screamed again, shuddered, and fell to the ground.

Zevran leapt off the dragon. Malcolm advanced with his sword, and before he could change his mind, stabbed the sword through the skull, with the tip of it burying itself in the bloody ground below. Then he left it there, dropped his shield, and ran towards where he'd seen his brother fall.

He skidded to a stop and dropped to his knees, shouting for Wynne. Alistair's armor was a ruin, either melted or crushed or pierced by the dragon's teeth. He could see the outline of where the dragon's mouth had been, where she'd bitten him, where she'd run him through with those long teeth. Alistair's face was grey, ashen and alarmingly so. "Alistair?"

No answer. No movement.

He held his hands above his brother's still body, wishing he could heal, wondering if he should even touch him. "Alistair?" Had he traded his brother for Morrigan? Had he saved one life only to lose another? "Alistair!"

Hands grabbed his shoulders and dragged him back as another person moved past him and knelt right where he'd been. He heard murmurs and shouts and felt the burns on his arms flare in pain. Blood had started to pool underneath Alistair, but that wasn't Alistair, it was his father, blood pooling under him, telling Malcolm that it was too late.

"Let Wynne do her work, my friend," Zevran said, his hands remaining on his shoulders even as he struggled to run back to the body. "Leliana has gone to get Morrigan. The witch can help as well. They will save him, this I know."

Morrigan appeared from the trees, Leliana and Gunnar close on her heels. The bard stopped where Zevran and Malcolm stood, while Morrigan, her face determined and showing what looked to be worry, ran to Wynne's side. Malcolm stopped fighting Zevran and the elf let him go. He bit at his lip and paced and glanced over every few seconds. Gunnar paced alongside him, casting concerned looks at his master. Malcolm scratched behind the dog's ears without paying much attention to his action. It was just something familiar to do. Leliana looked stricken, her face nearly as pale as Alistair's had been. Zevran had placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. For once, Malcolm noticed, there was nothing overtly sexual about the elf's gestures. It was friendship and comfort, something he knew the bard would need. He wasn't blind. He knew what went on between his brother and Leliana and had already teased him for it. And he could see right now that Leliana's heart had stopped just as much as his on seeing Alistair's condition.

A groan sounded from where the two mages huddled. Then Alistair's voice asked, "Is it just me or did I do really badly back there?"

Wynne helped Alistair sit up and the rest of them ran over. "If you're talking about the hang time you got when that dragon threw you, I think you did really well, actually," Malcolm said, a grin spreading across his face. He hadn't lost him. _They_ hadn't lost him.

Alistair chuckled then gasped in pain, hand going to his side. "Don't make me laugh. Seriously. Nothing like a brush with death to make you... not like death much."

"Your metaphors are as inspiring as ever," Zevran said. "You must be well."

Leliana said nothing. Instead, she knelt at Alistair's side, took his hand in hers, and remained silent.

"I am sorry for your injuries," Morrigan said to Alistair. "I regret that my need for protection caused this."

Alistair shrugged and graced the witch with a small smile. "Oh, no worries. Besides, I like you way better than your mother. Though, it would've been nice to know that she could turn into a dragon."

"Truly, I had no idea she could change into such a thing. You have to know a creature's soul in order to shapechange into one. Who knew that Flemeth must have once known a dragon?"

"I wonder if she was the dragon everyone saw at the end of the Blessed Age," Malcolm said. "Or if a dragon was her true form and she shapechanged into a human. Maybe she's an untainted old god."

"Or maybe she's a creepy abomination that's now dead and we could just stop talking about her," Alistair said. "I think I'd like that. And some cheese. Yes, that would be nice."

Wynne frowned. "I think you need to lay back down, young man," she said. "We shouldn't move him far, he'll need a few days or so of rest to finish recovering. Would it be bad if we stayed in the hut or whatever it is over there? If there is a free bed, it would do Alistair a world of good to sleep in it."

"We shall check," Morrigan said, and then took Malcolm by the hand as she went to the shack. Inside, it was like no one had been there for months. Dust covered everything, the coals in the fireplace had long grown cold. Morrigan scowled, picked up a rag, and ran it over every available surface, wiping away all the dust. Malcolm lifted the sheets and quilts from the bed, shaking out all the dust before remaking it. Then he went over to the fireplace, found some of the unused logs and kindling, and stacked them for proper fire. Morrigan glanced over and kindly set the logs ablaze.

Once the hut was fit for convalescence, Morrigan searched through some shelves and chests before triumphantly coming up with Flemeth's grimoire. She smiled once at Malcolm, the happiness touching her mysterious eyes, and then headed back outside. The group carefully carried Alistair into the hut and placed him on the bed, where he promptly fell asleep before getting out of his armor.

Malcolm and Zevran carefully removed Alistair's armor, taking care not to pull any skin off with it. They retrieved some loose clothing from his pack and put it on him before drawing a blanket over him. Wynne checked over Alistair again, looking to see if she'd missed anything before shooing them out of the hut, closing the door behind them to let Alistair sleep in peace. Outside, Morrigan and Leliana had set up the tents, started another fire, and gotten a meal going.

Once they'd eaten, Leliana had exchanged a pleading look with Wynne before the mage gave a slow nod, and Leliana quickly went inside the hut to sit with Alistair. Malcolm couldn't help it and he rolled his eyes.

Wynne shook a finger at him. "Don't you start, young man. You're just as bad."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, listlessly poking at the food in his bowl.

Zevran pointed at Malcolm's bowl. "Are you going to eat that?"

"I..." He looked down at it and found it as unappetizing as anything Alistair might've cooked. "No. Here, take it."

The elf snatched the bowl out of his hand and made short work of its contents. Malcolm laughed, wondering if that's how he must've been like after his Joining. Most likely, yes.

Zevran narrowed his eyes at him as he wiped errant bits of food off of his tattooed face. "What? What are you laughing at?"

"The Grey Wardens have particularly large appetites, especially soon after their Joining. We don't know if it's the effect of the taint or whatever, but there it is. It's just kind of amusing when a new Warden first starts in with the appetite, because the rest of us remember what it was like at the beginning," Malcolm said.

"And other than eating prodigious amounts of food, what else have I to look forward to?"

Now he knew what Alistair had felt like when he'd quizzed him around a fire much like this one. He wondered if he should answer with Wynne and Morrigan nearby then decided that he could. Wynne knew as much as any Grey Warden, and Malcolm suspected that Morrigan knew _more_ than any Grey Warden. He sighed. "I know you've had the nightmares. In addition to those wonderful dreams, you'll live for around thirty more years, give or take, depending on if you get eaten by a dragon or hacked apart by darkspawn. I was told that after the Blight has ended, the nightmares will become easier to manage. But the taint will catch up with you, eventually. You'll know when the nightmares come back, worse than before. When that happens, traditionally a Grey Warden goes to Orzammar for his Calling. The Warden goes into the Deep Roads for a final battle against innumerable darkspawn until he's killed. Apparently the alternative to dying in battle and just waiting out the taint is... unpleasant."

The fire's light warmed the troubled look on Zevran's face as he stared at it. Then he looked over at Malcolm again. "Given the option of dying as a ghoul or wasting away from the taint in a matter of a year, I suppose that thirty years is the better deal, yes?"

Malcolm shrugged. "I suppose. I know that when Alistair told me, I was furious. Then again, I was furious in general at the time." He scratched at an idle itch on his arm, and then winced and inhaled sharply at the pain the touch caused. Oh, right, he'd been burned. Somehow he'd forgotten about that in all the rush about Alistair being gravely injured.

Morrigan looked up from her reading and took his hand in hers before he could poke at the burns again. She scowled at him and pulled him to his feet. "Come with me," she said, putting the grimoire under her arm.

"What? What did I do?" he asked, having to follow her because she'd yet to let go of his hand. He heard Zevran laughing uproariously from the campfire they left behind. She brought him to where she'd set up a small camp of her own, on the other side of a knoll opposite the one Alistair had landed on.

She pointed to a log near the fire. "Sit."

With a wary look in her direction as she disappeared into her tent, he slowly sat on the log, wondering what he was supposed to be doing and why she was so irritated with him. Then he remembered he'd just helped kill her mother and maybe Morrigan had had more of an attachment to the woman than he'd previously thought. Was she mad at him for killing Flemeth? But she'd been the one to ask him in the first place. Though, he knew as well as anyone, that the death of a parent had effects on you that you would never suspect, and they often hit you when you least expected it.

"Off with your shirt," he heard the witch say. When had Morrigan come back out of her tent?

He blinked at her, clearly showing how puzzled he was at the request. "What?"

"Please remove your chainmail so I can look at your injuries. 'Tis obvious you are injured and if not for Alistair's rather urgent wounds, Wynne or I would have noticed it sooner."

"Oh." Somehow he felt shy, even though he'd been with this woman before, and she'd seen everything, he carefully peeled off the armor, shivering when the cold air hit his bare chest.

When he sat back down, long, graceful fingers lifted his left arm. "Burns," Morrigan said.

"There was fire. Because, you know, there's always fire when I'm around and it likes me." He thought he saw a bit of a smile play on Morrigan's lips. It made him feel warm inside, a contrast to the chill of the southern night. "So you aren't angry that we, um, killed your mother?"

"No," came Morrigan's reply as she concentrated on healing his arm. "I am most grateful. More grateful, perhaps, than you will ever know."

He nodded, feeling more than a bit relieved. Then he asked, "Did you love her?"

She looked up sharply from her ministrations. "What an odd thing to say. Why must love enter into the equation? Flemeth taught me everything I needed to learn. How to survive. The meaning of power. The truth of men. If other mothers do not teach these things, then I believe them the lesser."

Malcolm considered her answer, wondering just how empty Morrigan's childhood, if it could even be called that, had been with Flemeth. It made no sense, that even when being taught the things Morrigan had, that there couldn't be room for nurturing and love. He knew it brought strength of its own, that much was evident when you compared his upbringing with Alistair's. His brother had been brought up mostly in the confines of a cold, unfeeling Chantry. And before that, it had been an outcast bastard on an arl's estate. He'd known nothing of family and love and support and self-confidence one gleaned from that. And even now, it's what Alistair wanted most of all. Though his brother had grown into a fine leader, he'd come a long way from the young man with no self-confidence he'd been just after Ostagar.

Then again, Malcolm's own family had been the cause of his problems. If he hadn't felt connected to them, if they hadn't been murdered, then he wouldn't have broken down like he had after the sloth demon. But there was only so much of it he could take, only so much a person could set aside before they broke, shattered into hundreds of pieces that couldn't be so easily collected and put back together. Yet, it had been exactly what he'd had before, caring, nurturing, and more than a little tough love from his natural brother and from his Grey Warden brother that'd helped him find himself again.

"What it comes down to," Morrigan said, interrupting his thoughts, "is that Flemeth had to die so that I could live. I chose to live, just as you did."

He looked over at her, confusion coursing through him. She already knew that what she said hadn't happened at all, not with him. "I didn't choose to live. It was decided for me. I had to be dragged out, away from my parents. And then later, I had to be held back from causing my own death. You were one of the people who stopped me. What makes you say I chose to live?"

Morrigan gently turned over his other arm and tended to a burn there. "You could have given up. You are intelligent. If you had truly wished, you could have run to wherever you wanted and into your death. Instead, you stayed. You allowed yourself to be convinced otherwise. You chose to listen. You survived, as you were taught. Love does not enter into anything in how effectively one is brought up. Not as long as you survive."

He frowned into the shadows. "I suppose."

That made Morrigan look up. "You suppose it's true? 'Tis true. Take yourself. You do not honestly desire such things from me, do you? 'Tis better to be free of such cloying and cluttering delusions of love."

He met her eyes. "And what if I did want that?"

She looked away, into the shadows outside the fire's light. "Then more the fool you, I think."

"More fool me?" The anger rose in him at seeing Morrigan lie to herself. "Because I might love you? Because I loved my family? They were and are both strength and weakness. The strength in me is because of them and how they believed in me. You've seen Alistair struggle into becoming who he is now, a leader. He struggled so much because he grew up without love. Without anyone telling him they believed in him. Without anyone being there to catch him if he faltered. And that's what you people did when I faltered. You helped me and I won't believe you if you say no one did that out of any kind of love or caring."

Morrigan sat back and crossed her arms. "Then tell me your opinion of love. Explain this concept to me because I wish to understand what it is that you feel and what I might feel. You and I have been intimate. We have been close for some time now. You are impressive in many ways and you even protected me from Flemeth without hope of reward." She uncrossed her arms, stood up, and started to pace around the fire, arms at her sides, fingers flexing. "I feel anxious when I look upon you. I dislike this sense of dependency. 'Tis a weakness I abhor. If this is 'love' I wish to ascertain that you do not feel the same."

He remained seated and felt his anger dissipate as Morrigan continued to speak. Malcolm recognized her words and the true feelings behind them—she felt vulnerable. Somehow, she needed to see that love didn't make one weak. It made one stronger. "And if I do love you?" he asked quietly.

She spun on her heel and glared at him. "Then we are both fools, and we need to do something immediately. I have allowed myself to become... too close. This is a weakness, for us both."

Malcolm stood up and glared at her in return. "Love is not a weakness. If not for love, I would be dead right now. My parents loved me enough to agree to Duncan's request that night in Highever. They loved me enough to force me to live even when I wanted to die with them. You, my brother, all of you kept me alive when I wanted nothing more than to die. Without love, I would be lost. And so would you, I think."

"You are not listening to me!" Morrigan threw up her hands in frustration. "Do not be such a fool. This is for your own good. I would not... I am not like other women. I am not worth your distraction. And you... are not worth mine." She turned her back on him.

As soon as she said it, he knew it was a lie, more to herself than him. "You are worth my distraction. Do you think I would have risked my life and the lives of the others to kill Flemeth if I didn't love you? If I didn't think your life was important enough to save?" He reached out and turned her around to face him. She tried to look away, but he took her cheeks in his hands to maintain eye contact. He would not let her escape the love he knew was in his eyes. The same love he saw in hers, even though she wouldn't admit it. "You are not a distraction. You are a strength. One thing Flemeth did not teach you is that love is power."

"I... you are impossible!"

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "It's one of my better traits."

The same smile touched her lips, but reflected in her eyes for only a moment before sadness overtook the amusement. Love, but with great sadness. "Have it your way, then," she whispered. "But I will tell you truly now: you will regret it in the end."


	30. Chapter 30

"At Shartan's word, the sky

Grew black with arrows.

At Our Lady's, ten thousand swords

Rang from their sheaths,

A great hymn rose over Valarian Fields gladly proclaiming:

Those who had been slaves were now free."

—_Canticle of Shartan 10:1, Dissonant Verse_

**Chapter 30**

**Alistair**

"So what happens if you smite someone who isn't a mage?" Malcolm asked as they strode to opposite sides of the small clearing they were using to practice. Wynne had finally given him the go-ahead to resume normal Blight-related activities the day before and he and his brother hadn't wasted any of the time since. They'd traveled hard over the past couple days and were now camped just outside the Brecilian Passage. Tomorrow they would move into the forest and begin their search for the Dalish elves. Today, however, they'd pitched an early camp so Alistair and Malcolm could continue Malcolm's templar ability training. On their trip from Redcliffe to the Korcari Wilds, they hadn't done much beyond the basics and in some ways, it turned out well that Flemeth had chosen to fight them as a dragon. Otherwise, Malcolm wouldn't have had much by way of templar abilities in order to fight the old abomination had she chosen to remain in human mage form.

Alistair grinned at his brother, gathered his will, and hit Malcolm with a holy smite.

Malcolm flew backwards and landed on his rear, eyes to the sky. "You could have just told me," he said, remaining on the ground.

"But the look on your face was priceless. Well worth it, in my opinion," Alistair replied, unable to keep himself from laughing.

"That was hardly fair," Wynne pointed out from her spot at the edge of the clearing. She'd volunteered to stay nearby in case either brother managed to injure the other.

Morrigan raised an eyebrow at Malcolm, who had finally started getting to his feet, albeit slowly. "I disagree. Malcolm did give Alistair a valid opening for such a retort. I daresay he deserved what he got."

"Your concern is touching," Malcolm replied, stretching out his arms as if making sure he hadn't hurt anything. "And I thought you wanted nothing to do with our practice. I seem to recall you mentioning something about 'I shall not be present at any point when there would be unpracticed smiting going on' or something of that nature."

Morrigan graced him with a smile. "The entertainment proved too good to resist watching."

Malcolm rolled his eyes and stretched his arms out further. Alistair watched him carefully. They were both wearing armor just in case an ability went errant and someone got thrown. Alistair, though, had had to go back to wearing his old splintmail because the heavy chainmail he'd been wearing had been beyond saving. They'd left their swords and shields off, stashing them nearby in case of attack, but unwilling to wear or use them while they were practicing untested abilities. Well, untested with Malcolm. Alistair had repeatedly tested his templar abilities in combat.

By the time Alistair noticed the gleam in his brother's eye, it was too late.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, staring up at the deep blue sky, and wondering how close the Blight clouds were because it seemed a perfectly good time to look. Then his brother's laughing face appeared above him, offering him a hand up. Alistair accepted it and got up, saying, "You paid entirely too much attention to what I was saying before and you didn't let on at _all_."

"Yes, well. The look on your face was priceless."

Alistair scowled at him. "I suppose I deserved that. Okay, then. If you're so good at sneakily smiting your own brother, you should try it out on a mage." He glanced over at the two mages with them. "Any volunteers?"

Wynne shook her head slowly. "Oh, I'm too old to have anyone practicing smites on me. Who knows what old bones of mine would break?"

"I am game," Morrigan said, drawing her staff off her back and walking towards the two young men.

"Excellent!" Alistair grinned at his brother again. "There you go. Now, smite that scary witch. Go on. You can do it. You just did it to me."

Malcolm looked from Alistair to Morrigan and back again, entirely stricken with fear. "Come on. I can't smite her. I mean... no... seriously?"

"You have to try a smite on a mage some time. Might as well be one who's volunteered and as far as I know, doesn't want you dead."

"Right. That makes a lot of sense. Smite a mage who doesn't want you dead so that when they recover from said smite, they'll want you dead. Yes, I see how that'll work out. How about no? I could just try it in combat or something. That would work just as well." Malcolm started backing away from both Morrigan and Alistair.

Morrigan lifted her staff in the air and its tip began to glow. A flame appeared in Morrigan's left hand as she turned to Malcolm. "If you don't smite me, I will set you on fire."

Malcolm's eyes widened, the blue matching the sky above them, and he held his hands out as if to ward off a traditional attack, and not a magical one. "You wouldn't!"

Even Alistair knew that was a bad choice of words and winced in anticipation of what would come next.

A flick of Morrigan's fingers and a small flame danced above one of Malcolm's outstretched arms. "Have you ever known me not to do something I said I would?" she asked.

The flame grew larger and stretched out, hovering above Malcolm's entire right arm. One tendril dropped onto the arm itself and Malcolm yelped in pain. "Please stop it with the fire!"

"Make me." With Morrigan's declaration, more flames appeared above Malcolm's left arm.

Malcolm closed his eyes, in what Alistair gathered was an attempt to ignore the flames above his arm, opened his arms wider, and hit Morrigan with a decent, if rather rushed, smite. The witch dropped to the ground and the flames around Malcolm extinguished. Panic registered in Malcolm's eyes once he opened them and he ran over to Morrigan, where she still lay, shaking, on the ground. "Are you okay? You aren't going to kill me now, are you?" he asked as he knelt beside her.

Then the first laugh from Morrigan hit their ears and Malcolm stood up and glared at the witch. "You're laughing? You're laughing!"

Alistair was laughing so hard he could barely breathe and he knew Wynne wasn't much better off than he was judging by the chuckles coming from her direction.

"I hate you all." Malcolm gathered up his sword and shield and stalked back to camp, leaving the laughing trio behind in the clearing.

"That was brilliant," Alistair said. "Seriously. Brilliant."

"'Tis a good thing for him he came to his senses. Next would have been a crushing prison." Morrigan stood up, using her staff for leverage. "Now I should probably go see if he will speak to me any longer. And there might be a burn or two to heal since he kept insisting on not smiting me. Fool boy." She excused herself made her way toward the camp.

Alistair collected his sword and shield and headed back to camp as well, Wynne walking at his side. He realized this would be a good time to find out Wynne's opinion about Malcolm and Morrigan. If the good things he thought he saw in Morrigan might be true, or if his original assumption that Morrigan was evil was the actual truth. "So you know about him and Morrigan, right? You've heard?"

She paused mid-stride and looked at him. "I think I know what you are talking about, yes."

"And you agree with it? You don't think that it's... dangerous?"

Wynne raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous for whom? Him or her?"

He shrugged. "Anyone. She's..." Alistair struggled to figure out how to describe her. Not maleficar, he was willing to admit that now. Not entirely rotten, not after he'd seen her defend them against Isolde. "A witch? She's Morrigan. How can he even... this can't be a good idea. She can't be a good influence on him." But even as he said the words, he wasn't sure any longer. Morrigan had been as instrumental as any of the rest of them when bringing Malcolm back to being himself. Stopping him from being an idiot and getting himself killed. Helping him believe in himself.

"I admit that the thought did cross my mind, several times. But look at it another way. Perhaps he will be a good influence on her."

"I... hmm. I hadn't thought of it that way before. You know, even when I asked you, I was wondering if I was really that concerned about it any longer. I mean, I used to be, when I first noticed it. But that was when I assumed she was a maleficar. But... I know she's not. Or if she is, she's incredibly good about hiding it. I just don't know. I used to hate her, but now I'm not so sure. I can't even work myself up into a good rant about it anymore."

Wynne gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Never fear. I'm sure you'll find something to rant about soon."

Malcolm ended up giving Alistair the evil eye for the rest of the night, even through their shared watch. They set out at first light through the narrow Brecilian Passage, carefully leading their horses single file along the trail. After an hour, Alistair felt a strange tug from the taint, but nothing like the tug that came from sensing darkspawn or another Grey Warden. He pulled up on his horse and stopped to allow his brother to catch up alongside him. "Did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"Maybe it'll happen again." He waited a moment, and there was the pull again. "That."

Malcolm nodded, frowning out at the trees that towered above them. "Felt like the taint, but not darkspawn. Is there a different kind? Or is this one of those less-than-awesome Grey Warden surprises?"

"Only one taint that I'm aware of. Maybe the source isn't darkspawn, if that's even possible." His eyes searched around them, as if the cause would jump out and kindly let them know what it was they were sensing.

"I'm not sure if that's better or worse."

Zevran, bringing up the rear of the line, drew up next to them. "You feel it, too? What is it? It would be darkspawn, no?"

"No, not darkspawn, but it is the taint. We were wondering what it is, exactly," Alistair answered. "We should go track it down, though. It's somewhere nearby, that much I'm sure of." He motioned to the others, and the three Wardens left the horses with the rest of their companions. Then they took Gunnar and walked into the ancient forest to find the new source of the taint. Less than ten minutes from the Passage, they happened onto a hunting trail and followed it, the pull of the taint growing stronger with each step. Hands drifted towards hilts of blades, Gunnar growled low in his throat. Alistair was more confused than before. With feeling this much of the taint, there should be a great deal of darkspawn about, but there were none.

It made no sense. There wasn't a single Blighted anything within sight. Everything they'd seen thus far was healthy and alive. And of course Riordan wasn't around to ask what else could carry the taint other than a darkspawn or a Grey Warden. He supposed a ghoul could, but they felt different than what they were feeling now. Even people who were newly infected with the taint before they became ghouls felt different. There were two types of Blight illnesses, he knew about—the ghoul type and the wasting type. There had never been mention of a third.

They came around another sharp bend in the trail and Zevran was the first to see. "There's a body up there," he said, and then he broke into a run. The other three followed, Gunnar snuffling around them once they'd stopped. A young Dalish woman was passed out just beyond the entrance to a cave. The taint seeped from the cave's entrance, they felt it on their skin as it slithered along. All of them could feel the taint in the Dalish elf as well, but it was different than a ghoul taint, a wasting taint, or darkspawn taint. One thing he could determine was that this woman was incredibly ill. He reached out and touched her forehead and cheeks and they burned with fever. Sweat had plastered her auburn hair to her face. She wore leather armor of Dalish design and had daggers thrust into her belt, but a mage's staff lay nearby as well.

"We should get her to Wynne or Morrigan," Zevran said.

Malcolm started to nod, and then shot a questioning look to his brother.

Alistair met the look. "I'm not sure. It doesn—"

"You're not sure? This woman is sick. We have healers. I do not understand why you—"

"Zevran. Calm down." Malcolm had turned and put his hands on his friend's shoulders to steady him before he lost his temper. "Remember, back in Lothering, when Riordan and Alistair went after me in the village when I thought there would be survivors?"

The elf narrowed his eyes. "Yes. Why? As I recall, there were no survivors, and then you burned the village to prevent the taint from spreading."

Malcolm took a deep breath before saying, "We found people alive who had been tainted. We... we have to kill them when we find them, because if we didn't, they would continue to sicken and become ghouls. They would start randomly attacking people, spreading the taint as they did, as much as any darkspawn. Killing them is... a mercy."

Zevran looked from Malcolm to the Dalish elf to Malcolm again. "Is that what we must do now?"

"That's what I don't know,"Alistair said. "Whatever she has, it feels different. I don't know, hopeful, somehow. Almost like a Grey Warden taint, but not quite. What we do know is that she's seriously ill and we should have Wynne take a look at her. She knows a great deal about these things."

Malcolm studied the woman again. "Is she awake? She keeps opening her eyes." He bent over her. "Hello? Can you hear us?" When no answer came, and her eyes remained shut, Malcolm shrugged. "Guess not."

With Malcolm and Zevran's help, Alistair slung the Dalish woman over his shoulder and they went back to the Passage as quickly as they could. Zevran marked the way so that they could find their way back later, once they'd figured out what to do with this woman. When they returned to the trail, they found the rest of their party in a standoff with three Dalish hunters. Morrigan and Wynne each had their staffs out and crackling with magic, while Leliana had her own bow trained on who looked to be the leader of the Dalish hunting party. At least, that Dalish elf had the most ornate looking armor.

"Well, this is awkward," Malcolm said, placing a hand at Gunnar's neck to keep him from immediately attacking the three Dalish hunters who had bows trained on his friends. Then he looked over at Alistair. "Hey, we found the Dalish. Thought you should know."

"I would never have guessed," Alistair replied, keeping his eyes on the Dalish hunters.

"What have you done to our sister Líadan?" the leader asked, turning to aim his bow at Alistair.

"Um, I picked her up off the forest floor and am bringing her to my healer to be... healed?" Alistair said. They had to finish the discussion quickly, or at least straighten things out enough so that this woman could be tended to by Wynne. The feverish heat radiated from the elf's body even more strongly than before. "Wynne?"

His reply seemed to mollify the leader enough where he simply stared as Alistair carefully placed the Dalish woman's unconscious body on the grass at the side of the trail. Wynne stopped glaring at the hunters and stepped over to Alistair. "What happened?"

"We found her outside a cave like this. I think her fever's gotten worse since we found her. It's the taint, but nothing that we've encountered before. I'm not even sure if she'll turn into a ghoul or not. Is there anything you can do to heal her? Or at least make her less ill?" Alistair asked.

Wynne touched the elf's forehead and a glow formed around her fingers. "I can lower the fever for now, but it's best she remain unconscious. We need to get her back to her clan and I need to speak with her clan's Keeper." She looked over at the hunter leader. "Young man, can you lead us back to where your clan is?"

The direct question shook the Dalish hunter out of his silence. "What? Why would we do that? We're here to get you out of our land. We can take care of our sister ourselves."

"We were looking for you in the first place. We're Grey Wardens," Malcolm said. "We needed to speak to your keeper about a treaty. But right now, what's more important is this woman's life. You can yell at us later for being human and on your lands. Please, lead us back to your clan, for her sake."

The leader scowled mightily, but with a short jerking motion of his arm, ushered them forward. Alistair and Zevran picked up the unconscious elf— Líadan, Alistair remembered—and put her over one of the horses. Two hours of an uncomfortably quiet walk passed before they were led into the middle of a Dalish encampment. Aravels were scattered throughout a thinned area of the forest. There was a small clearing in the middle holding a large fire and several benches around it. Various Dalish elves stopped whatever they were doing as they passed through, eyeing the strange party with suspicion and some hostility. He really hoped these Dalish had heard of the Grey Wardens or his task was going to be much more difficult. Not to mention convincing these people that he nor any of his companions had hurt this young elf. Not that they wouldn't have if the taint was clearly the ghoul-type taint, but he wasn't going to tell them that. Usually, he didn't like telling _himself_ that, much less anyone else.

He still remembered the look on Malcolm's face in Lothering when Riordan had been trying to hand him the crossbow. That disbelief, that shocked horror, and then the realization that it was something that had to be done. He hadn't been able to look Malcolm directly in the eye when he'd glanced at him, because he was barely able to keep himself together. When he'd first encountered the ugly task of dealing with tainted people, he'd held that same look in his eyes. Every Warden did and the task never got easier. And it never went away.

The hunters finally brought them to a halt near a larger aravel near the center of the encampment. An older Dalish woman came out, her pale eyes regarding them with quiet curiosity and reflecting none of the suspicion and hostility of her fellow clanmates.

"_Aneth ara_, keeper," the hunter leader said, bowing slightly to the older woman. "We found these strangers in the Passage. They claim to be Grey Wardens and they _claim_ to have found Líadan as she is now."

The keeper nodded toward the hunter. "Thank you for bringing them to me, Fenarel. Please, return to your post with the others." Fenarel nodded and ran off, his two companions close behind. She turned to the others. "I take it Líadan is unwell?"

Wynne stepped forward. "She is very ill, keeper. We believe she has been tainted by darkspawn, but a different taint illness than one we have seen before. I have done what I can for her, but you might know older magic that is better suited for treatment."

"_Andaran atish'an_, stranger. I am Marethari, keeper of this clan. Follow me and we will do what we can for Líadan."

"I am Wynne," the mage replied, and then motioned to Alistair for him to bring the sick elf. Malcolm followed, while the others remained in the middle of the camp with the horses and Gunnar. They stepped carefully into a nearby tent, which Alistair gathered was some sort of clinic or infirmary, and at the Keeper's behest, he carefully set Líadan onto an empty cot. Wynne shooed him away and she and Marethari went to work.

Malcolm moved to stand next to Alistair as they watched the women try to heal the young elf. "So you don't think it's the sort of taint that..."

"No. It doesn't feel like it, anyway. And I've seen that sort of taint more than you have. More than I ever wanted to, actually. Once was already too much."

"Sorry."

"Not your fault, unless you happen to be an ancient Tevinter magister and you never told me. Anyway, I can't imagine they could come up with a cure. I mean, if there was a cure, I think the Wardens would've figured that out centuries ago. It'd come in handy when people got their Calling. Because then, you know, there'd be no more Callings." He sighed and forced himself not to pace, noting that Malcolm was doing much the same.

Minutes passed, and then an hour, before Wynne and Keeper Marethari stood up and faced the other two. "We have done what we can," the keeper said with a sigh. "And now we wait to see if she will even wake up. And you two young men are?"

"My name is Alistair," Alistair said, inclining his head slightly. "Senior Grey Warden in Ferelden, at the moment." Right when he said that, he could feel the amusement his brother was experiencing at his expense, he just knew it. He motioned toward his bemused brother. "This is Malcolm, also a Grey Warden. Wynne is a mage of the Circle who kindly travels with us, dispensing healing and the wisdom we lack. Our other companions who are outside with the horses are Zevran, another Warden, Leliana, a talented bard, and Gunnar, who is the mabari wardog."

The keeper tilted her head slightly, her iron-grey hair sliding across her shoulder. "You're the senior Grey Warden now? What happened to Duncan?"

"You knew Duncan?" he asked, not immediately answering her question out of surprise. Though it seemed an awful lot of people had known Duncan. If anything, he'd done an excellent public relations job with the Grey Wardens in most places in Ferelden. Too bad Loghain went and ruined all of that. Oh, and ended Duncan's life. That, too.

"Yes, he knew of our clan's yearly migrations and stopped by from time to time, looking for worthy recruits."

Alistair studied the ground briefly before making himself look Marethari in the eye. "Duncan died at Ostagar, along with almost all the other Grey Wardens in Ferelden, and most of the King's army. Malcolm and I were the only two Wardens present at Ostagar who lived, and it was entirely luck that we survived at all."

Sadness crept further into the keeper's pale eyes. Yes, she had known Duncan and had been another person who had respected him. "That is sad to hear," she said after a moment.

"It was sad to see," Malcolm mumbled.

Alistair resisted looking at him, knowing he felt the same way but hadn't said it. A lot of resisting today, it seemed. Marethari gave Malcolm a sympathetic look. "I'm sure it was, young man. A life's early end is often sad to see." She returned to Alistair. "What brings you here, then? Other than carrying one of our own back to us. Unless you were simply traveling the Passage to get to Gwaren."

He shifted uncomfortably, feeling badly for having to ask this favor when he'd just brought back a most likely terminally ill clanmate to these people. "Actually, we were looking for you. There's a Blight on the land, and despite our numbers being so ridiculously little in Ferelden, we're trying to stop it. As such, we've been trying to gather armies using the ancient treaties the Grey Wardens made with the mages, the dwarves, and the Dalish. You were, um, next on the list." Well, next on the list after that whole 'lets go kill Flemeth' adventure, but he needn't mention that.

Marethari nodded slowly, her hand clasping at a pendant hanging from her neck. "Yes, I remember being taught about that when I was but an apprentice to my own keeper. The Dalish agreed to aid the Wardens against a Blight, should that day arrive. And I have watched the Blighted clouds upon the horizon for some days, now. I honestly was expecting Duncan, having not heard of the outcome at Ostagar. But I see that you young Wardens have taken up the task in his stead. We will honor that treaty, and I will send messengers out to the other clans for them to start gathering together and readying their warriors to fight the darkspawn."

Alistair couldn't believe it had been that easy for the Dalish to agree. And they wouldn't even have to go around to every Dalish clan they could find, either. This keeper had just told them she would have her clan do it for them. It would certainly be easier for her to do so. It would lead to less confrontations like the one they'd had on the trail earlier. He'd certainly appreciate having less of those. "Thank you, keeper," he said.

She nodded her head once and then asked, "Tell me, when you found Líadan, did you see anyone else?"

"No, just her. We found her outside a cave in the forest."

"How did you find her?"

"We sensed the taint and went looking for it. It wasn't darkspawn, at least any we could see, which is odd in of itself. The taint was coming out of that cave and it will be something we'll need to investigate and take care of. As for Líadan... she's been tainted. Normally that happens when you're wounded by darkspawn, but I don't see any wounds." He shrugged. "Perhaps your magic will cure her. I don't know. I only know of one way that would allow her to survive."

Malcolm shot him an alarmed look.

"But," Alistair continued, "that's a conversation for another time. For now, we just need to see if she wakes up. And in the meantime, Malcolm, Zevran, and I can go deal with whatever the source of that taint is, be it darkspawn or anything else. Was there another with Líadan? Should we be looking for someone else while we're there?"

"Yes," Marethari replied. "Tamlen, he went out with Líadan early this morning."

"We can keep an eye out for him while we're at the cave. Would you mind if the others stayed in your encampment? If it's a problem, we can set up a camp somewhere else."

"Your home is our home, Grey Wardens. Your people are always welcome among the Dalish."

Alistair thanked her, and then they made farewells before setting out into the forest on foot in order to keep the horses out of unnecessary danger. Zevran was able to backtrack to the Passage, and they headed towards the cave at a relatively fast clip.

"So, what was that part with the keeper where you said you only knew one way for someone to survive the taint?" Malcolm asked.

Alistair knew it wasn't an innocent question. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. The Joining could give her immunity so she'd live thirty years instead of the taint she has killing her slowly and painfully. She won't turn into a ghoul, I don't think. Her body is reacting like a Grey Warden's would at the Joining, except the concentration of taint that hit her wasn't high enough or something. I don't claim to know how it all works, but what I can sense, and what I'm sure you can sense as well, even if you aren't admitting it, is that she could survive all of this if she wakes up. But, then she'd have to become a Grey Warden."

"And if she doesn't want to?"

"We're not just going to let her die. Nor are we going to risk her making her entire clan sick if she gets bad enough. If we can save her, we will." He hadn't realized he'd made the decision until he'd said it out loud. They would speak with Keeper Marethari when they got back and if Líadan woke up, they would ask her to be a Grey Warden. It was either that or they'd have to kill her, which he wasn't about to do. Not when she had a chance to live and do some good fighting the darkspawn. They'd ask and hopefully she'd agree. If she didn't agree, even if Malcolm objected, he'd invoke the Right of Conscription. She had the skills and from how she'd survived thus far, the ability to survive the Joining.

"Against her will?"

"If we have to. I hope we don't."

They fell silent as they reached the cave. Razor-tipped brambles surrounded the entrance and they had to hack some of them away with their swords to avoid getting caught in them. Once inside, Alistair immediately noticed the low growling noise he'd heard in Orzammar the one time he'd been there with the other Grey Wardens. He'd heard it down in the Proving Grounds and when he'd asked Duncan what it was, he'd shrugged and said he'd never figured it out, either. Alistair then remembered the other place he'd heard it—below the Tower of Ishal. Strange. He couldn't tell if the ruins were Tevinter or not. Perhaps elven. Or both?

The three of them crept further into the underground ruins. Alistair noticed a cocoon hanging from the ceiling and went to shout a warning.

A yell from Malcolm told him that he'd been too late. As Malcolm fought off a giant spider's fangs from snapping his head off, Alistair and Zevran took out the one who'd taking a liking to Malcolm, and then dealt with the other spiders. With Malcolm jumping at every little sound and constantly checking his clothing as if the giant spider might've deposited little spiders all over him, they continued onward. Shards of bones, skulls, and skeletons lay everywhere on the ground. While there was no corruption present, the entire place reeked of the taint.

In one hallway, they found a statue in the middle, a tall, thin person holding a spear, with what seemed to be wings spreading from its back. "What's that?" Alistair asked. "I remember what the Tevinter statues look like, and of course Andraste, but I've never seen something like that before."

"It's an elven statue," Zevran said quietly, his fingers tracing along the statue's wings. "Back from the days of Arlathan, it's one that honors the Creators the elves worshipped. The ones the Dalish still worship, if I remember correctly."

Malcolm raised a surprised eyebrow in Zevran's direction.

Zevran held his hands out. "What? I read as a child. And my mother was Dalish, if you must know."

They had no time to address Zevran's revelation, though. "Darkspawn," Malcolm said, spinning around toward the door they had just come through.

A small group of genlocks piled through the open doorway and attacked them. The three of them made short work of the darkspawn and continued on their way, keeping their weapons out and at the ready. The corridor held a group of angry hurlocks, though Alistair wasn't sure if there was any other kind of hurlock other than angry, and they cut through them easily. Which, when Alistair had fought his first darkspawn, had never thought would happen. A mere group of hurlocks? No problem. Genlocks? Shorter problem. Emissaries? Somewhat of a problem, but not as much as they used to be. The groups they'd found in these ruins had been disorganized, not the scouting parties or raiding parties they'd encountered on the roads, and certainly not the organized mass of the main darkspawn horde. No, it seemed these darkspawn had been randomly drawn by the taint as he and his Warden brothers had been.

They found the answer through the next door. Gnarled roots soared upward from the ground, stretching into the vaulted ceiling high above. In the middle of the room, a strange mirror stood on a pedestal, with a small set of stairs leading up to it. A black filth, one that couldn't be seen but could be felt as it skittered along your skin, oozed from the mirror. Yes, it appeared they'd found the source of the taint.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

**Líadan**

She opened one eye and quickly shut it when the scant light from the thin canvas above her hit it. A tiny, mean creature must have crawled into her head at some point and started pounding away with a warhammer or something equally as painful. How had she gotten here? Last she remembered, she and Tamlen had found that strange almost-mirror in those ancient ruins that had looked elven and yet not. Had she imagined it? She remembered a painfully bright light, a sound that tore at her eardrums, and then later, unfamiliar voices from around her and above her as she lay on the forest floor.

Frustrated with not knowing, Líadan opened her eyes and sat up, pain be damned.

"I see that you are awake, _da'len_," said the keeper, striding over to take a closer look at her. "You were very ill. I know not what dark power held you, but it nearly bled the life out of you. It was difficult for even my magic and the magic of another mage to keep you alive. Do you remember anything?"

Líadan ignored the question and frowned, her eyes skittering across every cot in the tent, searching for Tamlen and coming up empty. "What happened to us? Where is Tamlen?"

Marethari regarded her with sad eyes. "We do not know. A group of Grey Wardens found you unconscious outside a cave and they brought you here. They told me that you've come in contact with the darkspawn taint and that is what has made you ill. Do you remember seeing any darkspawn?"

Darkspawn? She'd never heard of one before, so it wasn't like she'd be able to tell. "I'm not sure. What do they look like?"

"Like a man," the keeper said, tapping her finger on her chin, "but dark and tainted with evil. Perhaps you fought one in the cave and it wounded you."

Líadan was fairly certain she'd remember that. "No, it was the mirror." It was the closest word she could find to describe it, though it hardly explained it at all. It'd had the vague shape of a mirror, certainly, but it reflected nothing. Instead, its depths had revealed something sinister and far beyond the world she knew.

"A mirror? And it caused all this? I have never heard of such a thing in all the lore we've collected." Marethari sighed and paced around the tent. "I was hoping for answers when you woke, but there are only more questions. And Tamlen remains missing. He is more important than any lore in these ruins of yours. If he is as sick as you were, his condition is grave. The Grey Wardens returned to the cave to search for darkspawn, but we cannot rely on them to look for Tamlen as well. We must go ourselves, and quickly." The keeper turned to face Líadan. "Do you feel well enough to show us the way, _da'len_? Without you, we will not find it."

Líadan sat up slowly, found the headache receding, and got to her feet. "I feel fine. I can lead people back to that cave if I need to."

Marethari smiled. "I am relieved to hear it. In the meantime, I am ordering the clan to pack up so we can go north and start calling the rest of the clans together."

"The clan is leaving?"

"If there is any truth to what the Grey Wardens said, then darkspawn may show up in these parts soon. They told me there is a Blight on the land, and we have a treaty to honor with the Wardens to provide warriors. However, we must get the rest of the clan away from the horde first, and then gather the rest of the clans. Together, we will be stronger and more safe from a direct darkspawn attack."

She couldn't argue with getting away from these darkspawn, whatever they were. And if there was truly an ancient treaty to honor, then the Dalish would honor it. It was their way. But the lore lost in that cave, with how the ruins had looked human and elven, both at the same time, it had to be important, too. "Are you not interested in the ruins and the mirror?"

Marethari smiled a little. "I would be lying if I said I was not. But whatever knowledge lies in that cave is not worth our children. I send you back with hopes of finding Tamlen, that is all."

As Líadan checked to make sure her weapons were secure and ready, she asked, "Why did the Grey Wardens think I had met a darkspawn?"

The keeper's eyes grew distant, as if seeing a fearsome creature in her mind. "Darkspawn are filthy, diseased beasts that taint the very air around them. The old tomes say that the darkspawn come in as many varieties as surface creatures. The Grey Wardens seemed to think your illness came from this taint. Since you did not meet any darkspawn, I don't see how that could be. No doubt they were mistaken."

If these humans had been mistaken, it made no sense that the keeper should have trusted them at all. "Why would you believe anything those shemlen said?"

"Not all humans are dishonorable, _da'len_," the keeper said, her tone slightly admonishing. "I knew the commander of these Wardens, and he was an honorable man. Their care for your safety speaks well of them. I trust my judgement. Now go. Take Merrill with you to the cave. Find Tamlen and do it swiftly, for his life hangs in the balance."

Líadan gave the keeper a resolute nod. "_Ma nuvenin_, keeper." Once outside the tent, she looked around for her staff and couldn't find it. A few questions to the other Dalish let her know that it hadn't been on her when she'd been brought into the camp. Gone. Missing. She'd have to rely on just her arcane warrior training and her weapons, then. Good thing she'd practiced the warrior arts a great deal as of late. She found Merrill waiting impatiently near one of the camp entrances.

"About time you showed up. The keeper told me I am to accompany you to the cave. As her apprentice, I may see something you missed."

"What? I don't have eyes?" She and Tamlen had thoroughly searched the area. Plenty of spiders had greeted them and they'd slain all they'd found. And there was certainly no missing those undead bodies that had attacked them, either. "First it's the keeper saying maybe I didn't see the darkspawn that might've wounded me, then everyone wondering how I lost Tamlen, and now you're assuming I missed a bunch of other things, too?"

"It's only because I'm the keeper's apprentice that the keeper thinks I might notice something you didn't," Merrill replied, her face apologetic. "And only because I'm trained in the ancient lore and have learned more than you have, just as you have trained and learned more of the art of the warriors than I have. We each have skills, Líadan. I didn't mean to insult you."

Líadan inclined her head briefly toward her clanmate. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm still a bit groggy from waking up and short-tempered as a result. How much did the keeper tell you?"

Merrill glanced to the deeper forest beyond the camp. "Enough to pique my interest, and my concern. You can explain the rest on the way. Let us make haste while daylight lasts."

She nodded and they set out. As they strode down the scant trail, Líadan asked, "Aren't you worried about getting sick?"

The apprentice shrugged. "A little, but the keeper cured you. How dangerous could it be? Even if I get sick, finding Tamlen—or something valuable—will be worth it."

She wasn't so sure, but she kept her opinion to herself. Being carried back to camp feverish and unconscious was embarrassing. If Merrill wanted to experience that firsthand then she wasn't going to stop her. Besides, Merrill tended to be like that, more so than even her and Tamlen, running headlong into danger out of pure curiosity. As they journeyed toward the cave, Líadan felt a burning starting through her veins, bringing a slight fever to her skin. It was unlike any other illness she'd had as a child. Never had she had an illness burn throughout her body like this. But she kept quiet, unwilling to admit that her illness could be back. She'd defeated it. Perhaps it was just the last remnant giving a shout before it disappeared entirely.

Ahead of them, they heard a deep, guttural growl before arrows buried themselves in tree trunks around them. Merrill stayed back and used her staff to do damage to the strange creatures, but Líadan ran ahead and attacked them with her daggers. There were only two and they fell without too much trouble. She nudged one of the dead bodies with her foot. It was very short. When standing, they had barely reached her chest, and she wasn't the tallest of the elves by a long shot. The bodies were squat and wide set, their skin a sallow, mottled greyish-green. Oddly, their ears were pointed, but they resembled elves in no other way. Their mouths stretched across nearly their entire lower face and jagged, sharp teeth grinned even in death.

Merrill ran up behind her and stared down at the two corpses. "What are those things? Are those darkspawn?"

Líadan shot her an annoyed look. People really needed to stop assuming she'd experienced things she knew she hadn't. "You're asking me?"

"I've never seen anything like them and I thought... I thought maybe you had and didn't remember. You can smell the evil on them. Where did they come from?" She frowned and looked up at Líadan. "Were they here before?"

The young arcane warrior studied the trail ahead of them. "I think I would have noticed. Let's just get a move on. We need to find Tamlen."

Before she could take a single step forward, Merrill grabbed her gently by the arm. "Are you all right? Were you hurt during the fight?"

"I think I would've noticed that, too. Why do you ask?"

"It's just that you're quite pale. You look a bit feverish, in fact."

Líadan narrowed her eyes. "Just what are you implying?"

At the harshness of Líadan's tone, Merrill stepped back. "Nothing. Forget I said anything. Let's go."

They found the cave again and crept inside, both of them keeping their weapons out and ready. Líadan hated to admit it to herself, and she certainly wouldn't admit it out loud, but Merrill was right. You could feel the evil sliding off those creatures and into the air around them. Líadan even believed she felt it within herself, that burning in her veins. But it couldn't be the taint the keeper had spoken of, she hadn't come across any of those darkspawn until now. Of course, they came up against several more of them as they made their way through the ruins. One of them, right outside the room with the mirror, even used magic against them. Líadan hadn't thought that possible what with how feral the descriptions of these creatures had been. After they killed the last of the darkspawn, they could heard voices in the room beyond. It had to be the Grey Wardens the keeper had mentioned. Merrill went to open the door, but Líadan stopped her, wanting to listen to whatever these people had to say.

"It could be Tevinter," a male voice said.

"And just how would you know that?" came another male voice, sounding a lot like the first.

"Because the Tevinters made all sorts of creepy things like this? The whole darkspawn taint thing really was their specialty, after all. You can feel it. It's all over this cave and it's all practically spewing from this mirror whatever thing this is. We should destroy it."

"I agree," said a different male from the first two, his voice heavily accented. "It is as dangerous as the darkspawn and the Blight. It made that young Dalish elf ill. It could do the same to others, therefore we should keep it from doing so, yes?"

"Good enough for me," the second voice said.

"We can't let them destroy it!" Merrill hissed at Líadan. "We have to stop them!"

A crash sounded and they heard the tinkling of glass hitting stone.

Líadan tried to stop her clanmate from going inside, for they could learn a lot by listening to these Grey Wardens when they suspected no one else present. But Merrill escaped her grasp and burst into the mirror room. Líadan reluctantly followed her.

Three men whirled around at hearing their footsteps. One was an elf, which surprised Líadan. The man had symmetrical tattoos on his face, but they weren't of any of the elven gods. A flat-ear, then, but at least a warrior. The other two were tall, well-built humans, one wearing steel heavy chainmail and the other in what seemed to be steel splintmail. They both had the same light, reddish hair and judging by the similarities in their facial structure, Líadan figured them to be brothers.

"So you were the one fighting darkspawn," one of the brothers said. He had a thin scar stretching vertically partway down his right cheek, barely visible in the scant light. Líadan wondered where he'd gotten it. "I thought I heard fighting."

"You were the elf we found outside this cave, aren't you?" the other brother said. He looked to be a bit older than the one who'd first spoken.

Líadan crossed her arms and fixed the three Grey Wardens with a scowl. "If you heard fighting, why didn't you help?"

The elf motioned to the room around them, where Líadan finally noticed the numerous darkspawn corpses that seemed to be freshly dead. "We would have we were not battling them ourselves. Not all the kills here were yours, no?"

"My name is Alistair and I'm the senior Grey Warden in Ferelden," the elder brother said, and then he gestured to the elf. "This is Zevran. He's Antivan, in case you couldn't figure it out, and of course a Grey Warden." Zevran gave Líadan and Merrill a slight bow. Alistair motioned toward the other human. "And this is Malcolm, also a Grey Warden."

Líadan couldn't help but see the amused glint in Malcolm's eyes when his brother mentioned him being the senior Warden of the three. She wondered why, but didn't ask. "Well met," Malcolm said to her.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," Alistair said. "The last time we spoke, well, the rest of us spoke and you just kind of muttered and mumbled, you were barely conscious."

Merrill inclined her head. "_Andaran atish'an_, Grey Wardens. I am Merrill, the keeper's apprentice."

A confused frown marred Alistair's face. "Your keeper didn't send you after us, did she? We told her we'd be in no danger."

"We're looking for our brother Tamlen," Líadan explained.

Malcolm looked from Líadan to the rest of the room and back again. "So you and Tamlen both entered this cave? And you saw this mirror or whatever it is?"

She nodded. "Yes. Tamlen said he saw something in it. A black city and maybe something looking back at him." When she'd looked with him, she'd seen the black city he'd spoken of, but hadn't seen anything return a curious or malevolent look.

Alistair glanced back at the ruins of the mirror. "It was filled with the same taint as the darkspawn, though we aren't sure why. Tamlen's touch must have released it. It's what made you sick, and Tamlen, too."

"Is that why you destroyed it?" Líadan asked, surprised that these strangers would do something to keep her clan and other people they knew nothing of safe.

Malcolm frowned at her. "Had we not, it would've tainted all who came near it. We couldn't let that happen. There's enough taint going around because of the Blight."

"You shouldn't have destroyed it," Merrill said, crossing her arms like she was preparing for an argument. "I do not fear this sickness, nor should anyone else. The keeper knows how to cure it.

Líadan noticed Malcolm and Alistair exchange knowing looks. Alistair gave Malcolm a short nod, making Malcolm's frown grow deeper. Then Alistair turned to her again. "She may have weakened it, but she cannot cure it. Your cure is only temporary. I can sense the sickness in you, and it is spreading. Look inside yourself and you will see. We'll need to speak with your keeper regarding your cure."

Those last words made Malcolm's countenance the most dark Líadan had seen it in the short time they'd been here in this room. She wondered what made him scowl so much, and at the same time, wondered if all three of the Grey Wardens could feel whatever it was that burned in her veins. But she wasn't that important. Her lost friend was important. "What about Tamlen?"

Alistair's eyes grew sad. "There's nothing we can do."

"I'm still alive," Líadan pointed out. "He could be, too."

Malcolm studied her for a moment, and the same sadness that'd been in Alistair's golden eyes crept into Malcolm's blue ones. "Let me be very clear," he said, his voice very firm, yet carrying an unmistakable sympathy. "There is _nothing_ you can do for him. He's been tainted for three days now, unaided. Through our mage's healing abilities, your keeper's healing arts, and your own willpower, you did not die. But Tamlen has no chance. I'm sorry."

Anger flared up in Líadan at these Wardens' reluctance to help. If they helped her, a stranger, why would they not even try to help Tamlen?

"Trust us when we say that he's gone," Alistair said. "We should really get back to your camp as soon as possible. Your illness grows worse even as we speak."

"Fine," Líadan snapped, and then spun on her heel. "Follow me." She would lead these shemlen back to the camp and then they could go on their merry way back to fighting darkspawn. Then she could conduct another search for Tamlen before her clan moved north to gather with the other clans. The journey back was conducted in near silence and Líadan was content to ignore the uncooperative Grey Wardens. When they got to the Dalish encampment, she brought them straight to the keeper.

On seeing Líadan return, Marethari smiled. "I am relieved you have returned. Dare I ask of Tamlen? What did you find of him?"

Líadan glared back at the Grey Wardens before answering the keeper's question. "Nothing. The Grey Wardens tell me that he's gone."

The keeper regarded the Grey Wardens with a skeptical eye. Líadan had to agree. Perhaps it would turn to hostility and these people would be made to leave. Served them right. "I see," said Marethari. "Merrill, what about the mirror? Did you bring anything back?"

Alistair stepped forward before Merrill could reply, his armor clinking as he did so. "I can answer that, keeper. I destroyed the mirror."

Marethari finally broke her impassiveness and scowled. "I intended to use it to find a cure for this mysterious illness. I trust you had good reasons for your actions?"

"We have learned a great deal since we were last here," Alistair replied. "There is much to discuss."

Something flickered across Marethari's face, washing away some of the frustration and replacing it with reluctant acceptance. "Let us speak privately within my aravel then, Wardens. Merrill, warn the hunters. If darkspawn are about, I want the clan prepared."

Merrill gave a short bow. "_Ma nuvenin_, keeper. Right away."

As Merrill ran off to warn the hunters, the keeper turned to Líadan. "_Da'len_, allow me some time to speak with the Wardens. Seek out my aravel later, and we can discuss your cure."

Líadan rolled her eyes and left the keeper to talk with the Wardens. Then she decided she'd just go out on her own and find Tamlen herself, without anyone else's help, since no one seemed inclined to look, including her clanmates. She gathered up some supplies, including some health poultices in case her sickness didn't wear off as quickly as she hoped, and then struck out into the forest beyond the camp. She ranged through the trees, searching until the sun dropped far enough in the sky to kiss the treetops. Knowing she couldn't search well enough in the dark and she only risked her own safety by doing so, she admitted defeat for the day and headed back into the camp.

The keeper met her almost immediately, her eyes flaring with anger. "Where have you been?"

Angry? Marethari should be happy she'd gone out to find Tamlen. She'd been awfully forceful about it before. Líadan met the keeper's glare. "I was searching for Tamlen since everyone else seems to have given up."

The anger disappeared from Marethari's eyes and sorrow replaced it. "The Wardens say he is dead by now, and from all they told me while you were away, I believe them. You put yourself in danger by searching for him alone, especially when you are still sick."

Líadan threw up her arms in frustration. "I'm not ill!"

"Why do you insist on lying to yourself and the rest of us?" the keeper asked. Then she extended her hand toward the younger Dalish, her fingers tenderly touching her forehead. "Even now, the fever causes your skin to burn with it, and your face is nearly as pale as it was when they brought you here. You are in need of a cure, _da'len_."

"You already cured me. It's just the last of the sickness being driven from my body. It's more important to find Tamlen than it is for me to make a speedy recovery."

"That is the problem. I haven't cured you, nor can I." The keeper motioned towards the two Grey Wardens who had walked over to them during their confrontation. "Alistair can explain it to you."

Alistair nodded to Marethari, and then turned to face Líadan, his eyes serious. "Your keeper and I have spoken, and we've come to an agreement that concerns you. Our order is in need of help. You are in need of a cure. When we leave, we hope you will join us."

"You would make an excellent Grey Warden," the other Warden, Malcolm, added.

Was this her punishment for losing Tamlen and not finding him? To be cast out? Made to serve with these Grey Wardens who believed Tamlen dead and gave up the search so easily? Líadan moved her glare from the keeper to Alistair. "I can't just leave my clan."

"The darkspawn taint courses through your veins," Alistair said, his voice moving from serious to somber. "That you recovered at all is remarkable. But eventually, the taint will sicken and kill you, or worse. The Grey Wardens can prevent that, but it means joining us. This isn't simply charity on our part. We wouldn't offer this if we didn't think you had the makings of a Grey Warden. I will tell you the truth: you will likely never return here. We will go to fight the darkspawn, battles that will take us far from your clan. But we need you and you need us."

Líadan turned her back on the Warden and looked helplessly at Marethari. She could feel it, they were casting her out. The keeper wasn't stopping this ridiculous notion that Líadan should join these Wardens. "Is the clan sending me away?" she tried to make herself sound angry, but instead, her voice came out laced with fear.

Marethari left a silence for a moment before replying, "A great army of darkspawn gathers even now. A Blight is upon the land. We cannot outrun this storm. Long ago, the Dalish agreed to aid the Grey Wardens against a Blight, should that day arrive. We must honor that agreement and gather the clans. It breaks my heart to send you away, as it would to watch you die slowly from this sickness. This is your salvation."

No, she wouldn't just leave. "This is all I've ever known. This is my _home_."

"A home that darkspawn may tear apart," Malcolm said quietly. "This way, you can find a cure and protect your clan."

The keeper's hand gently took Líadan's. "I cannot express my sadness at sending one of our daughters off into such danger, away from the clan that loves her. But if this is what the Creators intended for you, _da'len_, meet your destiny with your head held high. No matter where you go, you are Dalish. Never forget that."

As Líadan looked away from the keeper, unable to keep tears from showing in her eyes, she noticed a wince pass across Malcolm's face at Marethari's last few words. Then she turned back to the keeper. "Please," she said, her voice now weak, barely a whisper. "Do not cast me away."

Marethari looked at the ground, and then back to Líadan, and her eyes glittered with a thin sheen of unshed tears. "I am sorry, _da'len_."

"You..." Alistair started, and then exchanged a look with his brother. Malcolm opened his mouth as if to say something then quickly shut it, and his eyes grew pained. "You leave me no choice." Alistair took a breath, glanced at the keeper, and back to Líadan. "I hereby invoke the Right of Conscription."

"And I hereby witness and acknowledge your invocation, Alistair of the Grey Wardens," the keeper said.

Malcolm spoke then, his voice even quieter than before. "I'm sorry this wasn't your choice, but the threat is simply too great."

Líadan glared at the man with every bit of fury she could muster. "You cannot make me serve against my will."

It was Alistair who answered her declaration. "We will drag you kicking and screaming away from here if we must. We will not let you die, and we will not let you sicken your own people, either. Enough people have died and will die in this Blight. When we can save a life, we'll save it, even if that person disagrees."

Again, she noticed Malcolm open his mouth, and then shut it. This time when he said nothing, he walked away instead of staying, his eyes troubled. Líadan frowned after him, wondering what the man was thinking. Did he disagree with the conscription? Or was it something else? She'd be damned if she'd ask him, though. They could make her serve, but they couldn't make her talk unless she chose to. And she wasn't sure when, and even if, that would be.

"I know you'll do your clan proud, _da'len_," the keeper said to her.

"Say your goodbyes," Alistair said. "We must leave as soon as possible."

After Líadan had gotten her things, the clan gathered to say their farewells. She found it incredibly hard to look any of them in the eye, she couldn't take the sorrow in their eyes. It mirrored too much of her own, and she refused to cry. She would be strong in this and she would carry her anger at being taken away from her people. Torn away from her people. Then her clan was left behind, and they were in the forest beyond, and then onto the Passage.

Even as caught up within herself as she was, the awkwardness between the other members of the small group was noticeable. Alistair kept glancing at his brother with wary looks, while Malcolm kept to himself, remaining silent and brooding. The others, sensing the somber mood, kept the quiet amongst themselves. It grew too dark too quickly, and they had to set up a camp closer to the Dalish encampment than any of them would have liked. Líadan didn't bother setting up her tent. She wanted to see the trees and the sky and plot her escape. She set up her bedroll as far away from the warmth of the fire as she dared. After she lay down, she started to plan.

Líadan knew these forests better than any of these people. Once they went to sleep and whoever was on watch was on the other side of the camp, she'd make a break for it. She'd watched the elf set his traps and knew where they were and how not to trigger them. Given a good enough head start, she'd be able to lose whoever gave chase within the depths of the forest, and then make her way back to her clan before they left. She wouldn't have to stay with these people. She wouldn't serve as one of these Grey Wardens. Her duty was to her clan, to be with her clan. To be in her home. Soon enough, the camp's activities died down and the others went back to their tents to sleep.

Malcolm, the younger brother of the Grey Warden in charge, had first watch. He glanced in her direction once in a while as he made his rounds on the perimeter. After carefully observing his route, once he was near the far area of the witch's tent, she ran. She ran faster than she'd ever run before, barely making a sound as her feet pushed off the forest floor. Soon enough she heard a shout behind her, and then other shouts, before more footsteps crashed in the woods near where the camp was. She could barely contain her happiness and relief. They couldn't catch up to her now, she was too far away, and these woods were hers.

Then a dark form stepped out in front of her and she skidded to a halt. It wasn't one of the Grey Wardens or any of the others who accompanied them.

"You," the creature said.

The moon's light shifted through the branches of the soaring trees and she saw a malformed elf with skin corrupted and dark. Barely recognizable, but it was her friend, the one she'd thought was lost. The one everyone had given up on. "Tamlen!"

"_Lethallan_," the tormented creature said, its voice rough, as if being forced to speak through a raw throat. "Don't come near me. Stay away! Don't look at me. I am sick."

She ignored the request and stepped closer. He could be cured by the keeper's magic. She had been, at least enough to carry on and live. "We can help you. Don't be afraid."

The creature put up his twisted hands. "No help. No help for me! The song... in my head... it calls to me. He sings to me! I can't stop it. I don't want to hurt you, _lethallan_. Always loved you. I'm so sorry! Please, stop me!"

Then he attacked.

Líadan was so astonished that she stood there and did nothing as he leapt for her with a shriek, his arms outstretched. She watched and waited for the blows.

But they never came. A crossbow bolt buried itself in Tamlen's chest, followed by two more. Tamlen's body crashed into her, knocking her to the ground along with it. As she stared at the twisted corpse that had been her friend, warm hands grasped her under the arms and pulled her up. "Come on," a kind voice said. Malcolm's. He'd caught up to her. "Let's... let's get you back to camp."

"You killed him," she said, pulling away from the Grey Warden and glaring at him. "You _killed_ him."

"He would have killed you," came Malcolm's simple answer.

"You could have saved him!"

Malcolm cast a sorrowful look at Tamlen's body before looking back to Líadan. "No. I couldn't. I'm sorry. He was beyond saving. That... that's what happens when the taint is left unchecked. It's better for him, that it's ended. I know you don't believe me, but that was mercy."

Líadan moved forward and shoved Malcolm in the chest as hard as she could. "It would have been a mercy to let him kill me."

Malcolm took the push, rocking back on his feet, but didn't fall back or step away. "No, it wouldn't have. It would have been a waste of a life. Only one of you had to die. Only one of you could be saved. Hate me for it all you want, but given the choice again, I would do the same thing every time."

She kept her glare on him, arms crossed, the fury wrapping around her body so tightly that it kept out the cold.

He gave her a pleading look. "Please come back to camp without a fight."

Already, the rest of the voices and footsteps were closer. Even if she thought she could somehow escape from this Warden, the others were close enough to catch her now. She nodded sadly, resigned to her fate, knowing that she could never go back to her clan now.

She followed the Grey Warden back to the camp, leaving her home behind.


	32. Chapter 32

"There in the depths of the earth they dwelled,

Spreading their taint as a plague, growing in number

Until they were a multitude.

And together they searched ever deeper

Until they found their prize,

Their god, their betrayer."

—_Canticle of Threnodies 8:27_

**Chapter 32**

**Malcolm**

"With Líadan having lived through her Joining," Alistair said, taking a seat next to his brother at the campfire, "we've effectively doubled the number of Grey Wardens in Ferelden."

"Hurrah," Malcolm replied without spirit.

Alistair gave him a sidelong look. "Your enthusiasm practically bowls me over at times."

"I do my best." Then Malcolm slid from the log they'd drawn up next to the fire to lay on his back behind it and with his feet propped up on it. "She hates me. She hates me so much. I feel like I'm a little kid and there's some other kid in the castle who can't stand me even though I'm being as nice to them as possible. She should hate you, Alistair, not me. You're the one who conscripted her. But, no, she actually speaks to you. Me? I just get death glares. The super hating kind of death glares. And Morrigan likes her, so Morrigan doesn't even mention them to her to make her stop. She just lets her go on glaring at me all day long."

"You did kind of kill her best friend right in front of her," Alistair pointed out.

Malcolm understood his brother meant, though he could've worded it in a less harsh way. And he hadn't killed Líadan's best friend, more like the twisted ghoul shadow of her former best friend. But, even in ghoul-form, it was hard to separate friend from, well, foe. He covered his face with his hands. "Only to save her life."

"Yes, you saved her life and she's furious at you for it. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?" Alistair asked, looking at Leliana and Wynne nearby. Morrigan and Líadan were discussing spells or whatever mages talked about over by Morrigan's campsite.

"I haven't been in the Grey Wardens long enough to have to suffer this sort of payback. That's something that should happen twenty years after my own conscription, when I'm an old, placid, Grey Warden veteran who has that 'stop trying to make me get mad at you, you'll just feel sorry that I'm disappointed in you' look mastered. I don't have that look yet. All I've got going for me is the wide-eyed, innocent, please stop kicking me look. And it isn't working."

"I promise, eventually she'll stop being angry at you," Wynne said.

"Before or after the Blight?"

Wynne considered the answer for a moment as if she were doing some sort of addition in her head. "Before. Give or take fifty years."

Malcolm sat partway up so he could glare at Wynne. "That isn't funny. I know you think it's funny just like Alistair and everyone else does, but it isn't." Though, part of him did find it amusing in the 'seriously why me' sort of way. How Líadan was acting towards him was a lot like how he'd acted toward Duncan. But he'd barely had half a year to grow out of that and now he already had to deal with that sort of behavior directed at him from someone else? And it figured that the new Warden would get along with Morrigan as well as she did, so he couldn't even go to Morrigan for help. No, he'd just have to endure it until she decided that he wasn't worth hating. Or something like that.

Morrigan had also been fascinated at Líadan's training as an arcane warrior. Malcolm wasn't sure exactly what the training entailed, but the end result was that Líadan could fight as a warrior by using her magic. In his opinion, it was a pretty neat skill. He'd told her as much, but he'd just gotten a sullen glare in return and had kept his thoughts to himself after that.

They'd been traveling for nearly two weeks and were camped near the mouth of Gherlen's Pass, where from there it would be a half day's travel to Orzammar. Before they'd left the Dalish camp, Alistair had told the Dalish to gather their clans in the forests just west of Redcliffe and keep messengers posted at Redcliffe Castle. A runner had been sent ahead of Marethari's clan with a message from Alistair to Arl Eamon of the impending arrival of the Dalish. The mages already had their contact with Redcliffe via Connor's tutor. The templars had even grudgingly given permission for small boats from Redcliffe, given they had a written message from Arl Eamon, Alistair, or Malcolm, to dock at Kinloch Hold. Both Malcolm and Alistair were grateful that Redcliffe was already as close to a hub as it could be in Ferelden due to its proximity to Lake Calenhad and easy accessibility by lake and road. Even if Arl Eamon tried to control things more than either Malcolm or Alistair.

Eamon's attempts at control both annoyed Malcolm and Alistair and relieved them at the same time. On one hand, Eamon was a great resource for understanding and navigating all the political manuvering that would have to be done to pull off their bid for the throne. On the other hand, Eamon often tried to act as a puppeteer, either by want or default, neither of them were sure. For now, they went along with it because they were so busy building the army for the pending fight against the darkspawn. But they did keep themselves aware of it and noted when their opinions differed. They'd stopped by Redcliffe Castle for a night on their way through just so they could sleep in beds and eat a hot meal in a civilized manner. Eamon had yet again tried to bring up the subject of Morrigan with Malcolm.

It hadn't gone well.

Eventually, Alistair had stepped in and separated them before the shouting became too loud and alarmed the other guests and residents of the castle that either one of the princes was killing the arl, or the arl was attempting to murder one of the princes. For the good of Ferelden, after all. But Malcolm couldn't bring himself to hate Eamon. When it came down to it, Eamon was a good man, if overly rigid in his ideas of how Ferelden should be run and entirely blind when it came to the infuriating ways of his Orlesian wife. At least the last time they'd been at the castle, Isolde had made herself scarce and Malcolm didn't see her a single time. Happy days. He'd argue with Eamon every day if he had to just so that he didn't have to see Isolde, and he'd smile the entire time.

Alistair had tried to explain to him that he thought Eamon acted this way partly because the arl regretted marrying an Orlesian, even though he loved her. Malcolm had told Alistair that he was full of rubbish and that he didn't want to hear it. He wasn't an arl, he wasn't the one being put forth as a candidate for the throne, so he didn't have to worry about who he was involved with, and the Bannorn could take a flying leap for all he cared. Though when he'd originally said that to Alistair, it had included a lot more swearing and a great deal of yelling at the top of his lungs.

Then Alistair had brought up the fact that as it stood, Malcolm was technically the heir to the teyrnir of Highever, and if he really wanted, he could pull rank on Eamon to tell him to leave him alone. Malcolm had to admit it was a pretty sly thought on his brother's part. Alistair seemed to get politically smarter every day that went by. He'd also decided he'd save the whole being the heir to Highever thing as a trump card for when he'd really need it. Though, he really couldn't wait to see Eamon's face when he decided to pull rank. Actually, seeing Isolde's face would be even better.

Then again, pointing out where he fell into the hierarchy of Ferelden nobility would mean having to acknowledge that Fergus was probably lost for good. And he hated even the thought of that, much less the reality. The Cousland sword and the Highever shield were still stashed safely away at Redcliffe Castle's vault, waiting for Fergus to reappear and claim them. Malcolm had to hope that Fergus would come back. It wasn't something he was ready, or willing, to give up.

With sigh, Malcolm got to his feet and went for a walk. As they'd traveled, Zevran had taken it upon himself to teach Malcolm how to recognize his traps so that, should he decide to take a stroll away from camp, he would not return on fire or injured in any other way. Gunnar trotted beside him until he came to a halt at the edge of a cliff overlooking Lake Calenhad. Malcolm knew exactly what this cliff was—the one that had stopped his first escape attempt from Duncan. He'd picked this campsite on purpose, wanting to think about the good old days. Not really. He just liked the view and wanted to see it without his mind set on escaping his fate with the Grey Wardens. Gunnar must've remembered this place as well, because after he'd peeked down at the lake, the mabari looked at his master and barked.

"Yes, I know. Shut up. You're as bad as the rest of them."

Gunnar barked at him again, in agreement and certainly not in protest.

Malcolm scowled. "Traitor."

The mabari wagged his tail in reply.

"I've been meaning to ask, is that a mabari wardog? I remember the an elder of my clan talking about them once, when I was a child. She had been telling us the Saga of Dane."

Malcolm jumped at the sudden voice and turned to see that somehow Líadan had appeared behind him. He really needed to work on his observational skills when he was brooding. Otherwise, it'd be the death of him as easily as missing one of Zevran's traps. "Um, yes. He's a mabari. I've had him since I was fourteen. My parents had brought my brother and me to see a litter of new mabari puppies on my birthday, and I was lucky enough to have Gunnar imprint on me."

Gunnar barked and ran a tight circle around the Dalish elf, stumpy tail wagging the entire time, only stopping when she deemed to give him a good scratch on his muscular back.

"Your brother? You mean Alistair?"

"No. Fergus, my adoptive brother." At Líadan's curious look, he sighed. "It's complicated. I'm not sure how much anyone has told you, but Alistair and I are the bastard sons of King Maric, half brothers to King Cailan, who was killed at Ostagar months ago. I was raised by one of the nobility, a teyrn, as his own son. I didn't know until around Ostagar that I wasn't Teyrn Cousland's son by blood."

"Do you get to see them even though you're a Grey Warden? The family that raised you, I mean," she asked.

"No," he said softly, looking out over the dark water below. "They died."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged, sighed heavily and sat down, feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. If Morrigan saw him sitting so precariously, she'd probably kill him herself, so he hoped she wouldn't appear anytime soon. He probably just stuffed up his chance to get Líadan to be less angry with him with his unwillingness to talk about what'd happened with his family. But he wasn't ready to talk about that and he'd be damned if he'd talk about how he'd ended up conscripted into the Wardens. However, he did remember what Duncan had told him at this very spot. "By the way, in case you're thinking of jumping into the water to escape, please don't, because I hear you won't survive the fall."

"I had plenty of other, better opportunities to run if I had chosen to do so," Líadan said, sitting down with Gunnar in between her and Malcolm.

"I'm not sure how I should feel about that."

"Relieved, I guess, since none of you had to chase me."

"You run _fast_. Remind me to never challenge you to a footrace. You'd wipe the floor with me." He glanced over at the elf. "Since you're speaking to me, does this mean you'll stop giving me the stink eye all the time?"

She cracked the first smile he'd seen on her face, well, ever. "I don't know. Maybe. But Morrigan tells me she finds it amusing how 'it unsettles you so.'"

He scowled. "She _would_ say that." Then his face nearly split from a sudden yawn and he reluctantly stood up. He really did want to keep the conversation going, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep his eyes open for much longer. "All right, as nice as it is to be having some Warden brother-sister whatever bonding time, I need to get some sleep."

"I'd like to stay out here for a while."

"That's fine by me, so long as Gunnar stays with you. Not keeping you from running away, mind you, as he'd just assume you were going for a nice jog. I meant in general, should you be attacked by... anything that decided to attack you." He frowned. "Maker, I must be more tired than I thought if my descriptions are sounding like Alistair's."

She nodded and he bid her good night.

At first light, they struck out on the final leg of their trip to Orzammar and found themselves at the dwarven city's gates before midday. After stabling their horses outside and securing care for them for however long they were in Orzammar, they set to getting into the underground city. Three dwarven guards stood at the top of the landing of the wide staircase, in front of the largest set of doors Malcolm had ever seen. One dwarf, who Malcolm gathered to be the leader of this particular set of guards, argued with the leader of a group of human soldiers that numbered at only four. Their group walked quietly up to the stairs, careful to remain out of the immediate sight of the the arguing dwarves and humans.

"King Loghain will not approve of this delay of his appointed messenger!" the human leader yelled at the dwarf.

Malcolm flicked his eyes to Alistair. "_King_ Loghain?"

"Yes, I heard that," Alistair replied, glaring at the human soldiers. "Makes me want to straighten him out, as well. Preferably with sharp, pointy things. Well, we might as well go make him more mad and stroll into Orzammar without much argument. Grey Wardens are always allowed within. The dwarves like us."

"I wish we could say the same of the rest of Ferelden," Malcolm said.

"I'm sorry," the dwarven guard told Loghain's soldiers. "I cannot allow you inside. You have no pass from anyone in the city and King Endrin does not recognize the man you claim to be your king as Ferelden's king. In fact, he believes the man you claim to be king as a usurper."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow at his brother. Alistair shrugged.

"King Loghain is no usurper! He is Ferelden's true king and demands the allegiance of your dwarven king. I am his appointed messenger!" Loghain's man shouted.

The dwarf rolled his eyes. "I don't care if you're the king's wiper. You aren't allowed inside Orzammar."

Alistair took that as his cue to step forward and speak with the dwarf. Malcolm highly approved of rubbing it in Loghain's messenger's face that they could go in if they wanted. The more chances they had to snub their noses at Loghain, the better. "I have important business in Orzammar," Alistair said.

Loghain's man glared at them, not yet recognizing who they were. "If I don't get in, no one should. No business is more important than mine."

"Except maybe the Blight," Alistair said to Loghain's man, and then turned back to the dwarf. "We're Grey Wardens, and the last time I checked, we're allowed into Orzammar pretty much... whenever."

Loghain's man seemed as if Alistair's words were driving him into apoplexy. "The Wardens killed King Cailan and nearly doomed Ferelden! These men even claim to be King Maric's bastard sons and are sworn enemies of King Loghain! They are the usurpers!"

Malcolm walked threateningly in the messenger's direction. "Claim to be? Did you ever meet Maric or Cailan? Look at us. We're Theirins. But right now, that isn't what's important, even though you and Loghain seem to think it is. We've got Grey Warden business to attend to in Orzammar and it has to do with the Blight. You know, the massive horde of darkspawn spewing up from underground tunnels and trying to kill us all? Have you noticed them or is your head too far up your—"

"Yes, Grey Wardens are indeed allowed inside without needing explicit permission," the dwarven guard said before Malcolm got further into his rant, yet he still smiled a little at the other party of humans, the ones who would still not be allowed inside. Then he looked at Alistair's group again. "Grey Wardens, you may pass."

Malcolm smirked at Loghain's messenger.

The messenger's face turned a rather satisfying shade of purple as he moved his glare from Malcolm and Alistair to the dwarf. "You're letting in a traitor? And a foreigner? In the name of King Loghain, I demand that you execute this stain on the honor of Ferelden!"

Alistair stepped in closer to the messenger, grabbed him by his breastplate and got in his face, his eyes hard with anger. "Run to your false king. The dwarves will not hear him today." Then he threw him back in disgust.

The messenger stumbled and recovered his balance. "You'll hear of this," he said. "King Loghain will see you quartered!"

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Well, that would be a particularly gruesome way to die were he to succeed."

Loghain's men practically ran away and back down toward Gherlen's Pass. The dwarf, chuckling to himself, signaled for the guards to open the doors. "You are free to enter Orzammar, Grey Warden. Someone will meet you inside and have you taken to see King Endrin."

Their group couldn't help but have their own smiles at their small victory over Loghain. After passing through the doors, they found themselves in a foyer of sorts, the room lined with stone statues of dwarven design. Inspecting their nameplates, they were revealed to be statues of Paragons, both past and present. As they kept walking towards the far side of the room to the Orzammar proper, they overheard part of a conversation taking place between a mother and daughter studying one of the statues.

"Now that's a thing of beauty, daughter," the mother said. "If you were carved like Branka, all Orzammar would know your name."

"Mother, I don't want to be like her," the daughter replied, clearly exasperated.

Malcolm turned to Alistair. "Now that sounded familiar."

"Yes, that's exactly the conversation we've had with our father. 'But, Father, we don't want to be bastard princes!'" his brother replied, in a higher voice meant to sound like a small child.

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant."

"Hmm. Actually, I kind of would like to have that conversation with him. Too bad we wasted that opportunity with a serious conversation. I hear those sorts of conversations aren't even common among Theirins. We must be special."

Next to them, Líadan shot Wynne a incredulous look. Wynne sighed. "I'll explain later. It's complicated."

"I'm hearing that a lot," the Dalish elf replied.

Another set of doors opened and the group walked into the main part of the dwarven city of Orzammar. Malcolm came to a halt and openly stared at the gargantuan size of the cavern that held the city. Not only were their homes carved into the rock, but waterfalls, no, lavafalls had been created through ingenious shaping of the stone. In the middle of the city, in a lower cavern, there was even an entire lake of lava. A bridge extended through the middle of it, leading to yet another set of double doors. A sign nearby informed then that the doors were the entrance to the Proving Grounds, whatever those were. As the door guard outside had promised, a dwarf was waiting for them at the inner entrance.

"Greetings, Grey Wardens," the dwarf said, inclining his black-haired head. "Please follow me. King Endrin wishes to speak to you."

"Convenient," said Alistair, "as we wish to speak with him as well."

After navigating a gauntlet of merchants hawking their wares, the dwarf led them to what he called the Diamond Quarter. When Malcolm asked Alistair what that meant, his brother explained that it was where the Noble Caste lived. Malcolm realized he needed to do some reading about dwarven society if he was going to not look like an ignorant fool or make some horrible mistaken in etiquette. Wouldn't do for him to get himself into some kind of blood duel or something. He imagined that would meet with a sizable amount of disapproval all around. Once inside the Diamond Quarter, they headed straight for the royal palace.

As they walked toward the throne room, Malcolm walked over some sort of push plate, and he heard something move in the stones above, but couldn't see what. "What was that?"

Alistair glanced dubiously up at the ceiling. "I don't know, but best not to step on it again. Things like that usually lead to something trying to eat us. Or you being on fire. Again. On second thought, step on that again. You haven't been on fire recently. You're going to set some sort of record and it's making me nervous."

Líadan cast an uncertain look toward Malcolm. "Again?" she mouthed.

He shrugged. "I have this thing with fire. Usually it's me being _on_ fire."

The Dalish elf blinked, shook her head slowly, and followed the dwarven guard into Orzammar's throne room. An elderly dwarf in robes, whom Malcolm figured to be the dwarven king, stood in front of the throne, his beard and longish hair having long grown white. "Greetings, Grey Wardens. I am King Endrin Aeducan," he said when he saw them, the smile appearing on his face touching his eyes with its warmth. For once, someone who liked them. Endrin paused and tilted his head, taking a second, and longer, look at them. "I see that what the messenger said was true. You _are_ King Maric's sons." He gave them a slight bow. "Stone met, and blessings on your house, Theirin princes."

"You knew him?" Malcolm asked, deciding against addressing the whole prince thing. At least he didn't visibly balk at it this time, and neither did Alistair. They were making some sort of progress, it appeared.

Alistair glanced over at his brother. "It would make sense that he would, being a king and all."

"I also knew Loghain," said Endrin, "and I never suspected that man had ambitions to be king himself."

"I suppose the messenger also told you about that?" Malcolm said.

Endrin nodded. "In a manner of speaking. We do tend to keep up with the goings-on in the human lands above us. It saddened me to hear of your king's demise as well as my friend Duncan's. He was a good man. At least he died a death worthy of a Grey Warden—fighting the darkspawn to his last breath."

Neither Alistair nor Malcolm had a reply for that. They'd accepted that Duncan had died as a Grey Warden should, but neither of them could accept that Loghain had been the ultimate cause of that death. Duncan should have died later, while they were ending this Blight, and not at the very start.

Endrin noticed. "Do you disagree?"

Alistair sighed. "It isn't that we disagree, King Endrin. It's that the reason the darkspawn overran their position was because Loghain and his troops abandoned their place on the field. I realize that Duncan would have had to die at some point during this Blight, or even after due to his Calling coming near. But, it shouldn't have happened so soon. And that same treachery also resulted in King Cailan's death, as he was with Duncan on the front lines."

"The King on the front lines?" Endrin raised a thick eyebrow. "That sounds more dwarven than human."

"King Cailan was rather..." Malcolm searched for the proper word that wouldn't sound like he was disrespecting the late king's memory.

Endrin held up a hand, amusement in his eyes. "Say no more. I knew King Cailan as well. He tended to be quite... enthusiastic."

Malcolm gave the king a small smile for alleviating some of the awkwardness. "Loghain's actions not only caused Duncan's and Cailan's deaths, but it also caused the death of all the Grey Wardens in Ferelden save the two of us. Though, in the time since, we have, as my brother said to me the other night, doubled our numbers with the addition of two more."

Behind them, Líadan snorted. Malcolm glanced back and saw a smile twitching at the corner of Zevran's mouth.

"Four Grey Wardens, you say?" Endrin said, and then quickly directed a small motion of his right hand at one of his servants. "In all of Ferelden?"

Alistair grimaced and said, "Thanks to Loghain. It's like he doesn't even see the Blight, even with darkspawn waiting in every corner and a Blight cloud hanging low over most of southern Ferelden. It gets closer to the Bannorn as each day passes. He seems to think the more important thing is the nonexistent threat of an Orlesian invasion and a civil war of his own creation."

"Only four Wardens?" repeated King Endrin.

"Assigned to Ferelden, yes," Malcolm said, giving the dwarven king a curious look. "There was an Orlesian Grey Warden we freed from being Loghain's prisoner, but he split from our group months ago, searching for the location of the archdemon."

"I believe I may have found it," a familiar voice said from the other side of the room, with a hint of amusement.

Alistair and Malcolm spun around and saw Riordan standing in one of the side entrances, leaning on the doorway.

"Riordan! I see you've returned from your vacation in the Deep Roads," Alistair said.

"Yes, that's exactly what I was doing this entire time," Riordan said dryly as he walked into the throne room. "You found me out. I just wanted a vacation in the Deep Roads. I couldn't resist the chance to see them with less darkspawn about than usual."

Malcolm noticed the tiredness smudging underneath the older man's eyes and the paleness of his skin from being away from the sun for so long. "I honestly wasn't sure we'd ever see you alive again after you left."

Riordan gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm all right. Though I do miss the sky a little."

"No you don't. It's all... Blighted... on the horizon. Not the sky you knew."

"Tell me the same thing after you've spent some time in the Deep Roads, lad. Even a Blighted sky is better than no sky at all."

"Speak for yourself, Grey Warden," King Endrin said. "Some dwarves would have you believe you can fall into the sky on the surface."

Alistair laughed. "Only on a full moon. You should tell them that the next time someone mentions it."

"The dwarves really think you can fall into the sky?" Líadan asked, the first thing she'd spoken since they'd entered the throne room.

"Not all of them, young lady. Just a superstition among those who've had little contact with Surfacers," Endrin told Líadan, good humor glinting in his eyes.

"I see that you've made an addition since the last time I saw you?" Riordan asked, inclining his head toward Líadan.

Alistair's eyes opened wide at the realization that he'd entirely forgotten to introduce the rest of the group to the dwarven king, much less Riordan. "My apologies! I completely forgot to make introductions. King Endrin, Riordan, this is Líadan, a Dalish elf and our newest Grey Warden. Líadan, this is Riordan, Senior Warden of Jader." He then went on to introduce the rest of the small, yet growing, party to the dwarven king. Then he said to Riordan, "You mentioned something about an archdemon?"

The senior Warden nodded somberly, the amusement from before entirely absent. "Yes. I believe I have tracked its location in the Deep Roads to somewhere near or beyond the Dead Trenches."


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

**Alistair**

"And then we had to use the Right of Conscription to make Líadan come with us so that we could cure her," Alistair said to Riordan, finishing up his explanation of everything that'd happened since the senior Warden had left for the Deep Roads at Ostagar. The meeting between him and Malcolm and Riordan had been interesting to say the least. As Alistair had told their tales, Riordan had made a remarkable amount of different faces. King Endrin had insisted on giving them all rooms in the Royal Palace and the others had gone to theirs to take full advantage of the amenities while the three most senior Wardens talked.

"Which she got mad at _me_ for," Malcolm added.

Alistair tried to be sympathetic, but he was fairly certain his face clearly showed the relief he felt that the Dalish elf wasn't mad at him. "Sorry about that. Hey, at least she's stopped glaring at you. Mostly. Okay, sometimes. As in, she isn't glaring at you constantly."

Malcolm sighed. "Only because she has to blink occasionally."

Riordan shook his head in disbelief. "Let me get this straight. While I've been in the Deep Roads, you've found the Urn of Sacred Ashes, managed to sneak around a high dragon without getting killed, cured Arl Eamon, fought a high dragon that wasn't really a dragon... what was it that you fought again, exactly?"

"That was Flemeth," Alistair said. "Morrigan's mother. Well, I think it was her mother. Anyway, she was going to kill Morrigan, so we decided we should probably kill her first. Morrigan is much more preferable to Flemeth. If you'd ever met Flemeth, I'm sure you would understand."

Riordan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And she turned into a dragon and you almost got eaten."

"More of a nibble, really."

"And that's why you're wearing your old armor?" the senior Warden asked, opening his eyes again.

Alistair shifted uncomfortably. They hadn't been able to replace his heavy chainmail or get it repaired since their confrontation with Flemeth. His splintmail was perfectly serviceable, though getting on the old and worn side. And it didn't offer as much protection as the heavy mail had. Made him feel naked at times, it did. Except even Malcolm's steel chain didn't seem to be much better off. Eventually, they'd have to pick up some new armor and neither of them looked forward to the cost of that. "Okay, so it was more of a chomp. Anyway, we all survived, except for Flemeth, which was what we were aiming for in the first place."

"Moving on from attacks on high dragons, you secured help from the Dalish, and then effectively doubled the number of Grey Wardens—"

"We only started out with two, so hitting the four mark wasn't terribly difficult. But that jump from four to eight, I've heard that's quite a hurdle," Malcolm said.

Riordan held up a hand. "Please don't interrupt. I'm still trying to work all of this out in my head. So everyone involved is coordinating at Redcliffe Castle?"

Alistair nodded. "Yes. Eamon is helping us organize things there while we secure the help from the dwarves. People are also doing patrols to determine exactly how far north and west the land has been Blighted. The last message we got before we entered Orzammar was that a large section of the horde had been sighted a few weeks south of the village of Honnleath, which is only a few days travel from Redcliffe. They were trying to determine if the horde would reach Honnleath were the darkspawn not delayed, but they hadn't gotten any reports back from that scouting party yet. The Dalish clans are gathering around the western edge of Redcliffe so they can defend their people better as well as gather enough warriors to send out when we go against the bulk of the horde. That's where things are for now. And you said you found out where the archdemon is?"

Riordan turned and took a rolled up piece of parchment out of the desk drawer. He carefully spread the paper out on the desktop, revealing a partial map of the Deep Roads with several scribbled annotations and marked locations. Pointing at one location, he said, "This marks where the ancient Fortress of Bownammar was. It used to be where the majority of the Legion of the Dead were, but long ago it was abandoned to the darkspawn and is now called the Dead Trenches. I had tracked the archdemon's presence up until I reached Caridin's Cross before I had to come here to Orzammar. I needed to research the old thaigs and get the best map that I could before I could go any further, as well as try to secure more Wardens or at least some dwarves to accompany me. The Shaperate helped me a great deal with the mapping and I now know that the archdemon is indeed still in the Deep Roads and somewhere beyond Caridin's Cross. Most likely, it is in the Dead Trenches." He sighed and looked up from the map, eyes deadly serious. "Since we have four Grey Wardens now at our disposal, we will need to see if we can get to the archdemon and deal with it ourselves. _If_ we can find a hole in the darkspawn defenses. If not, it's just a reconnoitering mission. "

"Why does it sound like it would be highly unlikely we'd find such an opportunity?" Alistair asked. "Finding our way through darkspawn defenses aside, won't the archdemon know we're coming?"

Riordan shrugged. "I do not know. I am hoping there will be enough darkspawn in close proximity to the archdemon that it will not be able to single us out from them. If not, we will note the location of the archdemon, the best path to getting there, and retreat from the Deep Roads to inform the rest of the Wardens. As we all know, the key to ending the Blight is killing the archdemon. We might have a chance here, and we must take it."

"It makes sense, as horribly scary as it sounds," Alistair said. "What about—"

A knock sounded on the door and he fell silent. There was no telling who was on the other side.

"Come in," Riordan said.

One of King Endrin's servants popped her head into the room. "The King asked me to inform you that the feast in the throne room will begin in one hour."

The senior Warden gave the dwarf a small smile. "Thank you."

The servant nodded once and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

"Do we really have to go?" Malcolm asked. "I mean, a feast? Really? Just because we're here?"

Alistair grinned. "I told you the dwarves liked us."

Riordan made as if to pinch the bridge of his nose again and stopped himself. "Yes, you must go. And we will all go to the Proving tomorrow that King Endrin decreed will take place. Duncan suffered through them each time he visited Orzammar, and so must you. And it goes doubly so for the two of you anyway."

Malcolm sighed. "Yes, yes. The whole welcoming Maric's sons thing as well as the hurray we love Grey Wardens thing. I know."

"It will help you learn patience," Riordan said. "For it seems at times you sorely need it. Now go get ready."

"Wait! Does this mean you're in charge now?" Alistair asked just before he got to the door.

Riordan gave a rueful nod. "For now, yes. At least until we're out of the Deep Roads, anyway. Then I must depart for Jader and bring our findings to the Wardens there."

"Thank the Maker." With that, Alistair went to his rooms to clean up from the road. He defaulted to wearing his armor since they really had nothing else remotely acceptable, and suspected everyone else would end up doing the same. At least, from what he'd seen, it was entirely permissible to wear armor no matter where you were in Orzammar. Though, he did wish his armor was in better condition, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Later, if they had a moment, he should probably try and find a merchant and pick up some new chainmail despite the cost, especially since they were going into the Deep Roads the day after tomorrow. He shuddered. He hated the Deep Roads. Gave him the creeps.

Malcolm met him outside their rooms, looking as uncomfortable as Alistair felt as they walked toward the throne room. "This is entirely unnecessary," he grumbled. "Seriously, we should be getting into the Deep Roads tomorrow instead of going to this Proving, whatever that is."

"The Proving is some sort of arena where the dwarves from the warrior and noble castes fight each other. Whoever wins is considered favored by the Ancestors. That's what Duncan told me last time we were here," Alistair explained. "Apparently there's all sorts of strict rules associated with it, too. Like Riordan said, they always hold a Proving when Grey Wardens are in Orzammar. I guess it's become a tradition, too. It always delays trips into the Deep Roads. Not that I mind. I hate the Deep Roads."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "You've been there before?"

"Yes, a few months before Ostagar. There were rumors of a darkspawn horde massing in the Korcari Wilds. So, naturally, we went to the Deep Roads to check it out. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it does in a roundabout way. When there's a Blight on, the Deep Roads become, well, safer, in a way. There's less darkspawn down there because they're all busy Blighting the surface and all. I don't look forward to the trip in the least, so I'll suffer through as many Provings as King Endrin wishes to hold to avoid it." He remembered part of the last trip to Orzammar fondly, as the Proving Master had insisted that Duncan, as Warden Commander, sit in a large chair that looked an awful lot like a throne. The other Wardens hadn't let him live it down, even once they were in the Deep Roads and hunting darkspawn.

Malcolm cast a look at the floor, as if he were looking toward the Deep Roads. "It's strange to think that in the end, the Deep Roads is where we'll end up."

A shiver ran up Alistair's spine. "Yes, thank you for that reminder. You're full of wonderful thoughts today, you know that?"

"Hey, I'm just being a Grey Warden. We're always full of fantastic news."

Alistair held up a finger. "And witty one-liners. You can't forget those." He stopped right before the door to the throne room. Already, they could hear the volume of all the chatter going on in there. The some of the others apparently had already gone in—they could hear Zevran's Antivan-accented voice regaling a cloak and dagger story, Wynne carrying on some conversation about magic not working with dwarves, a puzzled question from Líadan about what lyrium was. Alistair imagined Morrigan already there, watching everything with her haughty disdain. Well, no, perhaps not haughty disdain. Now that he'd gotten to know her a little better, thanks to his brother's efforts, he knew it was more feigned disinterest to not put herself at risk. Raised in the Wilds with little contact with other humans and their largely unspoken rules, Morrigan often had no idea how to act in a manner other than detached, because she didn't want to expose how ignorant she was of those rules. Her air of mystery and admittedly half-threatening posture kept those at bay who could expose her weaknesses, even if she were never to admit she had weaknesses.

"You go in first, you're the older brother," Malcolm said.

Alistair shot a wary look at the door. "No way. I order you to go first because you're the younger brother."

"Watch me as I disobey that order."

"In a moment," came Riordan's voice from behind them, "as Senior Warden, I'll order you both to go in. But you'll be speaking with King Endrin again at some point tonight, and you need to know something. Fairly recently, about two months ago, he had two of his three children die. His eldest was killed by the daughter, the middle child, or at least that's the official story. There's rumors about that it was the youngest, Bhelen, who killed the eldest, and somehow framed the middle child, Sereda. But in the end, no proof of Bhelen's involvement was found, and the evidence against Sereda was deemed irrefutable. Her sentence was exile into the Legion of the Dead, which means she is also effectively dead, if not in body by now, certainly in thought for all of the dwarves. So you might want to watch any talk regarding King Endrin's children unless he brings it up first."

"Oh, room for more awkward. I look forward to that," said Alistair. "We always need more awkward." He sighed and faced the door again. "Let's just get this over with."

"I think going through another Joining would be more pleasant," Malcolm said, and then opened the door.

Alistair went through first, followed by Malcolm and Riordan. King Endrin noticed them immediately, and waved them over. As they went, they picked up mugs of water from one of the servants who was walking about the room. A youngish dwarf with short blond hair stood next to him and bore more than a little resemblance to the dwarven king. Alistair assumed the young dwarf was Prince Bhelen. Yes, more awkward indeed. He wondered if awkward could've been avoided had Riordan not said anything about the Aeducan children, but supposed either he or Malcolm would've asked Endrin if he had any other children, effectively inserting foot into mouth.

Endrin gave introductions and introduced the dwarf beside him as his son, Prince Bhelen. Alistair and Malcolm gave uncomfortable greetings, unsure if their discomfort was due to Bhelen being a possible murderer, or because King Endrin introduced _them_ as princes. A helpless look in Riordan's direction only alerted them to the senior Warden's significant amusement at their expense. "He's as bad as Duncan," Alistair muttered to Malcolm.

"Worse, I think. I swear, he's practically gleeful."

"What was that?" King Endrin asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just, um..." Malcolm's eyes darted about the room in trying to find a decent answer and he came up with nothing.

The dwarven king let out a loud laugh. "You're discomfited with the idea of being called princes, I assume? It slipped my mind that you weren't raised in your father's court."

Malcolm narrowed his eyes at King Endrin. "You didn't forget. You did that on purpose. I'm on to you now."

The king's grin told them Malcolm's supposition was true. "Perhaps I did. But after a moment, you will feel even more discomfited." He raised his hand and motioned to one of his servants, who nodded and quickly left the room. Alistair's alarmed look only made the king's smile larger, and he could do nothing but wait in dread for the servant to return. And return he did, with two others following him, carrying large containers of dwarven make, and smiles of their own.

Malcolm looked from the servants to the king, his eyes widening with panic. "What's this about? What's going on?"

Endrin ignored Malcolm's question and instead quieted the room. "The day after tomorrow, it is my understanding that Princes Alistair and Malcolm will be going into the Deep Roads with the other Grey Wardens to hunt the archdemon."

Princes? Announced to all these dwarves and the rest of the people in their party? It wasn't as if the rest of their companions didn't know, but it had never been formally announced anywhere. And now it had. He wanted to die. Right then and there, he wanted to just drop dead. A glance at Malcolm told him his brother felt the same way. In fact, he was so busy staring at the floor it seemed he was trying to will a hole into existence to swallow him up.

"Now, we dwarves pride ourselves with our abilities at smithing arms and armor. On seeing the sad state of the armor of these princes, and remembering the armor we provided their father King Maric during the Rebellion, I set about finding these lads decent sets of armor." He motioned again to the servants, who had approached and held the containers within arm's reach of the king. Two more servants removed the lids from the containers and Alistair watched with absolute dread, as if the containers held snakes and not whatever armor with which they were about to be presented. The servants brought the armor out of the containers and held it up for display. They were two sets of heavy chainmail made of silverite. But there were intricate designs everywhere on the armor, along the gauntlets and about the neck, various places on the chestpiece. It was undeniably exquisite armor, easily worthy of a general or a king. But to him? To Malcolm? Somehow, they were worthy of these fine gifts?

Around them, the audience clapped their approval. Zevran shouted, "Now that is some sexy armor."

"I..." Malcolm started, but fell silent.

"Thank you," Alistair managed, almost squeaking the words.

Which made King Endrin only laugh more. "Your father reacted in much the same way when he was presented his armor. You will wear it well in combat, I am sure. And I wouldn't have heard of you not getting new armor while here in Orzammar after seeing how worn out your current armor is from fighting the darkspawn, even if you were not Maric Theirin's sons. I will see to it that the rest of your party is also well-equipped. It is the least I can do while the Grey Wardens and their companions risk their lives to end the Blight. Now go, enjoy yourselves. The armor will be delivered to your rooms."

"Thank you," Malcolm finally said.

King Endrin gave him a friendly pat on the back, and then moved to speak with another dwarven noble.

Malcolm watched him go. "I guess that solves the problem of finding new armor for you. And me, I suppose, and everyone else, for that matter."

Zevran came up behind them, throwing his arms over their shoulders. "You will have women fawning all over you when you're wearing that armor," he said then tilted his head to the side. "However, they would have to get through a witch and an Orlesian bard to get to you, so you might not have to fight them off with a stick. But, fret not, I shall pick up the slack for you, dry their tears at not having you, and then comfort them most warmly that they are better off with me."

"Such a chore for you, I'm sure," Alistair said.

"You cannot imagine the effort it will take. So many women and only so much Zevran." He slapped them each on the back. "I must get started then, no?" The elf sauntered off into the crowd.

"And so my father finds more young people to embarrass," Prince Bhelen said from beside them.

"He does that often?" Malcolm asked.

"Unfortunately. Usually it's one of his favored deshyrs or myself who suffer his amusement, but you brought new blood and someone else to give gifts and embarrassment to."

Alistair frowned out at the rest of the people at the feast. "I feel so lucky. Really, I do."

"It's true you are going into the Deep Roads?" Bhelen asked.

Alistair couldn't detect anything untoward about the other prince's question, so he decided he'd just carry on the conversation like any other. "We are Grey Wardens, it's what we do. Well, I mean, go into the Deep Roads to kill darkspawn. Not just randomly go into the Deep Roads."

Bhelen stroked his braided beard. "Do you know anything about the Paragon Branka?"

"We... saw her statue in the foyer and heard a mother telling her daughter she should be carved like Branka?" Alistair said, now entirely unsure of where Bhelen was going with this line of questioning. In fact, he glanced around to see if Riordan was anywhere near to rescue him. And... no such luck. Riordan was in a corner in the midst of a conversation with Zevran and Líadan. They were probably peppering him with Grey Warden questions. Good. Let Riordan answer them and be the one they'll get mad at.

"She's a girl of the Smith Caste who rose to nobility for her brilliant inventions," Bhelen answered. "Two years ago, she heard of something the ancients created. It inspired her to leave everything behind and venture into the Deep Roads. She is the only Paragon in four generations and she turned her back on her responsibilities. I heard that your Senior Warden tracked the archdemon to somewhere near Caridin's Cross? Is this true?"

"Somewhere beyond Caridin's Cross, actually," said Malcolm. "The Dead Trenches, I think. Why? Did you want to come along?"

The dwarf smiled. "Ha! You Grey Wardens have an interesting sense of humor."

Malcolm arched an eyebrow. "You could say that. Besides, your father's isn't much better."

"What made you mention Paragon Branka?" Alistair asked, wanting to know what Bhelen was up to. Something in his gut made him not trust the dwarf. He wouldn't have trusted him even if Riordan hadn't mentioned the suspicious deaths of his brother and sister.

"Ah, nothing gets by you, Prince Alistair," said Bhelen, the honorific making Alistair cringe inside. "You see, men have tracked her to Caridin's Cross, but that's where her trail ends. I thought perhaps to alert you in case you saw her. And maybe you could make her come back if you stumbled on her while in the Deep Roads."

"Something gives me the idea she doesn't want to be found," Malcolm said. "And that stumbling randomly into people in the Deep Roads isn't very commonplace unless it's darkspawn you're stumbling into."

Any reply Bhelen might've given to Malcolm's dry observation was stopped when another dwarf stumbled into the group. The red-headed man smelled like a brewery, the first stereotypical dwarf they'd run into. Well, the dwarf had run into them, but still. "Hey, stranger," the dwarf said to Alistair, "have you seen a Grey Warden hereabouts? I was told by King Endrin that he... or was it she—you understand, this was several flagons ago—was setting out to go to Caridin's Cross in a day or so to look for the archdemon and whatever else they could find."

"Whatever else they could find?" Malcolm mouthed to Alistair.

Alistair shrugged, crossed his arms, and then turned back to the dwarf. "And what does this Grey Warden look like?"

The rather drunk dwarf grinned. "Stout and muscular, fair of face but with a strong jaw and a bold nose, surrounded by a glowing nimbus. If she's a woman, she might be more slight, but her eyes will shine with the light of purity and her large but chaste bosom will heave magnificently."

As the dwarf had kept talking, Malcolm's face had started turning an odd shade of red as he struggled to hold in a laugh. To try to cover it up, he'd taken a sip of his water. When the dwarf mentioned the heaving bosom, Malcolm lost the fight with the laughter and ended up spitting said water onto the unfortunate Price Bhelen, who'd been standing across from him. Bhelen let out a rather unmanly yelp and tried to find a napkin or towel to wipe off his armor with. Malcolm was bent over and laughing too hard to even remotely seem sorry for the water.

Managing to keep a straight face, Alistair told the dwarf, "None of the Grey Wardens I know look like that."

"Light of purity," Malcolm wheezed and burst into laughter again. "If he even _knew_..."

The dwarf blinked at Alistair, ignoring Malcolm. "Seriously? You're a Warden? I mean, a Grey Warden? I heard you were a prince, not a Warden."

"Apparently one can be both at the same time. Who knew?"

"By the tits of my Ancestors! When King Endrin told me I'd be guiding the Grey Wardens to Caridin's Cross and beyond, I had no idea I'd be traveling with princes, too!" Then he slapped Malcolm on the back. "Having trouble breathing there, boy? You need some ale? Fine dwarven ale. It'll put hair on your arse."

"No, no, I'm fine. I normally breathe like I've just run three miles uphill at top speed while wearing plate armor. Don't mind me."

"You're our _guide_?" asked Alistair, wondering if someone put this dwarf up to this.

"Um, actually, yes." Bhelen appeared at their sides, armor now dry again. "That's part of what I was getting to with Branka. This," he indicated the other dwarf, "is Oghren. He's part of the Warrior Caste and he's Branka's husband. No one knows the Deep Roads like he does, other than the Legion of the Dead—"

"What our young Prince Bhelen here is trying to say is that while we're not saying that I shouldn't be your first choice for a dance partner at an inaugural ball, but in the Deep Roads, I'm your man. At least, that's what King Endrin says. Well, as long as I've had enough ale."

Alistair looked from Oghren to Bhelen and back again. "And you've... had enough, have you?"

"Ha! Not by a long shot, boy!"Oghren turned to Bhelen. "Now where're you keeping the good stuff? You Aeducans better not be holding out on me."

Bhelen gave Alistair and Malcolm an apologetic smile and led Oghren away.

"That was interesting," Alistair said to his brother.

"I can see why she left him behind," Malcolm said as he watched Oghren trip and stumble into Bhelen.

"I think they were having us on. He can't really be our guide. Besides, we don't even need a guide. We've got Riordan and maps and darkspawn." He sighed. "Let's just go eat. And not drink. No drinking. That Oghren's done more than enough drinking for all of us forever."

They got through the rest of the feast without any undue stress. Sleep, for once in a bed, came quickly, and the next morning dawned without a hangover. At least for Alistair, though he wasn't sure for the others. Oghren was nowhere in sight, so he assumed they either wouldn't see the dwarf ever again, or they wouldn't see him until they were actually stepping into the Deep Roads. Not until he'd started putting on his new armor did Alistair realize how new it looked. Bright, even. At least he and Malcolm hadn't been given matching mail, they never would've lived that down. Both sets were of silverite, but Malcolm's was more subdued than his brother's. Alistair assumed it was because he was the elder and the apparent heir, or something ridiculous like that. It fit well and was lighter than the steel splintmail and the steel chainmail that'd gotten gnawed on by Flemeth the High Dragon.

He met Malcolm and the others just outside the Royal Palace doors. Malcolm slowly looked him up and down, and then said, "You're rather shiny."

"I hate you."

"Don't worry, some ichor will fix that problem right up for you. I hear the Deep Roads are infested with them."

"Yes, well. You're rather... decorated."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Really? That's the best you could do?"

"It's early yet."

"Don't listen to him, Alistair. He is only jealous that his armor does not shine as much as yours," Zevran said, falling into step with them as they walked through the Commons.

"Oh, yes. I'm terribly jealous that I am not as much of a target," Malcolm said.

"Speaking of targets," Zevran said, and snatched the wrist of a young male dwarf who'd been going in the opposite direction of them and had passed awfully close to Zevran. "You will return that dagger. You have a deft hand, but one will not fool me by plying my own trade upon me. I am rather attached to that dagger. Should you not return it, you will find yourself with a gaping hole in your midsection caused by another of my many daggers. Were you to return it, I will let you go. It seems a good compromise, no?"

The pony-tailed dwarf scowled. "I only tried it because my friend dared me. He said no one would ever try to pickpocket a Grey Warden."

Zevran laughed. "Generally, it is not good for one's health to do so. A good mark is one who is not armed and armored. I am both, as are all my friends here. A life lesson for you."

The dwarf reluctantly handed the dagger back.

Zevran inclined his head. "Thank you. Have a nice day."

Before Zevran could change his mind and do any bodily harm, the dwarf ran off into the crowd.

"How did you even know?" Alistair asked, staring at where the dwarf had gone.

The elf shrugged. "It was part of my trade at one time, did I not say that? Assassinations are not all about the kill at the end. You must investigate things. Intercept messages. Provide yourself with coin with which to buy weapons and poisons and more information and the like. You would be surprised how many ways pickpocketing comes in handy. That dwarf, though. He should do something about his friend. Most people who bear arms are not as benevolent as I when pickpocketed."

"You were an assassin?" Líadan asked.

Zevran turned to her and smiled, his light hazel eyes bright. "Why, yes. An Antivan Crow, in fact."

"He was actually sent to kill Malcolm and Alistair," Morrigan said. "And you see how well that turned out."

Líadan's brows raised and she looked at Alistair. "And you recruited him?"

"Into the Grey Wardens? Not exactly. He volunteered for that part. Before, we just let him hang around in order to discourage other Crows from trying to kill us. Let them think they'd end up Grey Wardens if they tried. It's worked out well so far. No other assassination attempts. And no other Antivans, either," Alistair replied.

The Dalish blinked her eyes in disbelief as she slowly shook her head. "You are strange people."

"Not quite so strange. I mean, I knew Zevran before he tried to kill us," Malcolm said quietly. "He actually took the contract so that we wouldn't actually be killed. Though he did give everyone a scare by acting like he was going to kill me. Morrigan still hasn't forgiven him for that."

Thus reminded of her ire, Morrigan fired a glare at Zevran. "He put a blade to your throat. I do not forget such a thing very quickly, nor do I forgive the one who did it very quickly, either. Someone has to take your life seriously. And if 'tis not you, Malcolm, it might as well be I."

Zevran flashed a grin at the witch. "My lady Morrigan, if you must recall, you did set him on fire. Should that not make us even?"

"Not by any means of measurement I know, elf. I will let you know when you have redeemed yourself appropriately. Until then, tread carefully." To emphasize her point, Morrigan lifted her hand, palm up, and a light purple orb of energy appeared in her palm.

Malcolm, with an amount of courage Alistair hadn't ever imagined existed, reached out, took Morrigan's wrist and gently pushed it down. "Morrigan, please don't kill him. He's useful to have around."

"And pretty," Zevran added. "I am always good for standing around and looking pretty."

The witch allowed her hand to be drawn down and the energy in her palm evaporated. "He is not in any danger so long as he continues upon his current trend of not hurting you. But should he ever deviate, I will not hesitate to deal with him."

Zevran inclined his head. "I would expect no less, my dear Morrigan."

Even though he hadn't had a drop of ale the night before, Alistair's head began to ache.


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

**Riordan**

As the small party—though, with nine people and the wardog, it wasn't quite as small anymore—descended into the Deep Roads, Riordan started to worry that he'd been out of them for too long. Already, the archdemon's presence had receded to where the talking was beginning to grow faint. Signs of a darkspawn retreat littered all the side caverns: abandoned fire pits, abandoned fortifications, discarded and broken weapons, piles of refuse. Just outside of Caridin's Cross, they found the carcass of an ogre along with two dead giant spiders.

"Thaig crawlers," Oghren said, kicking one of the spiders with his booted foot. The spider was as tall as the dwarf and three times as wide.

Malcolm shot an incredulous look at Oghren. "You have _names_ for those?"

"Why wouldn't we? We see 'em all the time in the Deep Roads. Sometimes, they're worse than the darkspawn."

"Worse than the darkspawn," Malcolm repeated.

"What, you afraid of a little spider?"

"It's hardly little. It's bigger than you. Are you saying you're little?"

Oghren waggled his bushy eyebrows. "You'll have to ask the ladies that question."

"That is so not what I meant," Malcolm called back, walking ahead to check out what looked like a cave-in, most likely in order to get away from Oghren.

Riordan followed him, assessing if they could find a way through or have to cut through more side caverns. He squinted and studied the evidence. The rubble was fresh. As he'd suspected, this cave-in hadn't been here when he'd passed through before. The tunnels and roads themselves had become a blur in his time spent here since Ostagar, so he had to make sure. He turned to the dwarf. "Blocked, yes?"

Oghren nodded. "Aye."

The senior Warden looked back and forth between the two sides of the road. Each side had a tunnel and he had no idea which way to go. Either way could lead them to Ortan thaig and eventually the Dead Trenches, or they could lead in entirely the wrong direction. "Any ideas?" he asked the dwarf.

Oghren put his head to the worn bricks of the road, splaying his hand across its gritty surface. Alistair looked from Oghren to Riordan, the question showing clearly on his face.

"Stone sense," Riordan answered. "Most, if not all, dwarves have it. Some insist that it's the only sense that's really worth having."

"Can't argue with the truth, Warden," Oghren said, and then pointed to the left tunnel. "That way. If you Surfacers had any sense, you would've known that already."

"I'll be sure to let you navigate should you ever find yourself on the surface with us. Then you can talk of stone sense as being the only good sense, my friend." Riordan stepped into the tunnel, casting about with his ability to sense the taint, but finding only a few small parties of darkspawn lurking around in the chambers beyond. Nothing that should prove to be too much trouble, but he kept his limbs loose just in case.

"Ha! The surface. You people are mad up there. Living out there with nothing over your head. At all. Just anytime, a great sodding bird can fly overhead and take you away."

"That actually happened to Alistair and me once," Malcolm said, hurrying to catch up with Oghren at the front. "Not as bad as you'd think. Of course, neither of us remember any of the trip. But without the ride from said huge taloned bird, we'd be dead. At least, that's the story we were told when we woke up."

"You're a sodding liar, boy. You're just telling me some dream you had in your Fade."

"No, 'tis true. I saw it myself. Knew the shapeshifter who saved them, in fact," said Morrigan.

Oghren turned and walked backwards to face the witch, while Malcolm continued further ahead. "And how do you know this shapeshifter person?"

"'Twas my mother, in fact."

"Let me get this straight. You're saying your mother was a giant bird? Are you another giant bird in disguise?"

The witch scoffed. "Of course not. I am human."

"Bah. Says you."

An unmanly yelp sounded from around the corner just ahead. Líadan turned to Riordan, eyebrows rapidly rising toward her hair. "What was that?"

Riordan drew his blades. "I believe our friend Malcolm has found more thaig crawlers."

"Anytime you guys would like to help kill them, that would be fantastic," Malcolm called. "There's only so much screaming I can do! How about you—" then the talking stopped.

Frowning, the senior Warden rounded the corner to find Malcolm caught in a body-encompassing web. The strands held his jaw clamped shut, but the thickness of the web also kept any of the spiders' fangs from doing any damage. The party fell on the spiders, Oghren proving himself a worthy warrior as he cleaved crawler after crawler in two. The tug of the taint became stronger, and Riordan heard the whispered warning of an ogre nearby. He left the last of the spiders to be mopped up by the non-Wardens, motioned to the other Wardens, and advanced to the next cavern. Alistair skidded to a halt next to him when they could view the scene taking place in the new cave.

An ogre roared, its massive legs attempting to trample the thaig crawlers underfoot. Three hurlocks cut in wide swaths with their swords, attacking the same spiders. Alistair's hand worked at the grip of his sword, but he made no more forward. "I think we should stay back and watch the show."

Malcolm swiped at his face, pulling away several remaining strands of web with each pass of his fingers. "If only because I don't know which to attack first. I hate both sides."

"The ogre. It's more dangerous than the rest of them combined," Riordan said, and then dropped to the outskirts of the fight, looking for an opening where the ogre would be most vulnerable. Líadan, from her place near the chamber's entrance, shouted for them to move away from the darkspawn. Puzzled, Riordan glanced back at the Dalish, knowing she used daggers and had yet to see her use ranged weapons. He recalled Wynne mentioning something of Líadan's abilities and being amazed by them, but he hadn't been paying as much attention as he should have at the time. He'd been too busy watching Malcolm and Alistair trying to navigate through their first conversation with Oghren. Apparently, he really should've listened to Wynne better. Of course, that seemed to happen a lot more than he liked throughout the years.

Riordan slipped further back into the shadows, keeping an eye on Líadan. At some point, she'd sheathed her daggers and acquired a staff. He frowned. A staff? She was a mage? The armor she wore said otherwise, as did her ability with bladed weapons. He'd even noticed her chatting with Leliana about bows. However, despite his doubts, Líadan was indeed gathering magic. The spell zipped from her hands to envelope the darkspawn and spiders clustered in the middle of the cavern. All of them seized up, paralyzed. The senior Warden didn't waste a second, leaping forward and onto the back of the ogre and shoving his sword into the back of the ogre's neck. He stayed on the body as it fell, using its momentum to propel him forward into the next grouping, sweeping in front of him with both blades and cutting down what he could.

By the time Líadan's paralysis spell wore off, both crawlers and darkspawn were dead. "I don't sense anymore for the time being," Alistair said.

"Nor do I," Riordan agreed.

Malcolm sheathed his sword, though he seemed loathe to do so. "Would anyone happen to be able to sense any more of those spiders? Or thaig crawlers or whatever those damn things were? No? Of course not. Well, then I'm not going first any longer. You lot don't get to hear me scream like a little girl anymore."

Riordan suppressed a smile at the younger Warden's expense. "No one asked you to walk point in the first place."

Malcolm narrowed his eyes as he tried to form a coherent protest. "I... damn. You're to the rear for me, then."

Oghren snorted. "Heh. Rear. Get it? Rear."

"Good to know where your mind is, dwarf," Líadan said.

Riordan motioned toward the next tunnel. "Zevran, you take point." Then he fell into step next to the Dalish elf as they advanced. "Mage?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You didn't know? I've been using magic each time we've been in combat. I thought you'd be able to tell. I'm what my keeper called an arcane warrior. We use magic to allow us to wear armor and use traditional weapons as effectively as warriors. Of course, it doesn't give us the martial ability, merely the opportunity to use the martial arts by channeling the magic into our muscles and reflexes and such. It's a very old art that I understand has been lost by the Circle of Magi, as I've learned by talking to Wynne about it. Once the Blight is over, given that I would not be in danger of the templars claiming me an apostate and taking me as a hostage, I have agreed to speak with the First Enchanter at the Circle in order to educate them so that others might learn."

"You would not be in danger of the templars," Riordan said. "You are a Grey Warden now and the Chantry and its templars have no authority over us, much to their dismay. You say you possess the ability for using weapons and armor in combat, but you still must learn these skills in order to use them?"

"Yes. It's why I spent so much time with Tamlen out..." the elf trailed off, a grimace marring her young face. "Why I spent so much time out in the forest training, I mean."

Riordan recognized the name Líadan had said, this Tamlen. He'd been the companion with whom she found the Tevinter—at least they assumed it had been Tevinter—artifact. The same Tamlen whom Malcolm had to kill a few days later in order to save the girl's life. Alistair had repeated the story to Riordan while Malcolm had been present, but Malcolm hadn't added much beyond corroborating his brother's rendition of the events. Not only did Líadan have some things to work out, but yet again so did Malcolm. However, the young man was in a much better place than he'd been when Riordan had left. They had also used good judgement in how they'd dealt with Líadan's situation, especially in how they'd saved the young woman's life instead of having it be wasted. A pragmatic, yet sympathetic approach, very much the ideal of Grey Warden conduct. Duncan had used the same method with Malcolm and many other recruits, as had Riordan, and a long line of Warden Commanders and Senior Wardens before them.

Once this Blight was over, though, whoever was left alive would have to notify Weisshaupt about the Tevinter artifact. A team of Grey Wardens with more knowledge of the subject would need to investigate it as well as move whatever was left of it to a more secure location. There was no telling what the remains could be used for, or if someone would even foolishly try to repair them.

After allowing Líadan a moment to recover from her memory, Riordan said, "Make sure you practice whenever you get a chance. I will be happy to work with you should you want to, and I'm sure Alistair, Zevran, Leliana, or Malcolm could show you some things as well."

Líadan scowled at his mention of Malcolm's name and Riordan held in a sigh. It seemed there was still more than a little resentment left on Líadan's part. It was interesting how the young elf was angry with Malcolm, but not Alistair, even though it'd been Alistair who'd invoked the Right of Conscription. He supposed Líadan must've felt anger at Alistair initially, but transferred all of that fury to Malcolm when she'd been attacked by Tamlen and Malcolm had killed her friend to save her. He knew Líadan didn't wish Malcolm dead by any means, but she certainly would continue to make things tense and uncomfortable the longer the resentment continued. "You wouldn't want Malcolm's help?" Riordan asked quietly.

"No. I wouldn't mind working out with the others, in fact, I love the idea, but not with him. I just..." She glanced back at where Malcolm walked with Morrigan and Wynne, with Gunnar trotting at his side, deeply engaged in some sort of friendly debate and not paying a bit of attention to the others. Confident Malcolm wouldn't hear, Líadan continued, "Whenever I talk to him or with him, it's all I can do not to yell at him. I know that must make you think badly of me, but there it is."

Since he could still sense no darkspawn and they'd ended up back on an actual road section of the Deep Roads, Riordan decided he'd continue with the line of questioning as far as he could take it. "I do not think badly of you. But, was it not Alistair who conscripted you? I understand that Malcolm was present, but he was not the one who invoked the Right. In most situations such as yours, one would be angry at Alistair."

Her pale eyes focused on the road ahead of them. "I was mad at him. But then... there was..." She sighed. "Am I in trouble?"

"Pardon?"

She turned to him. "Trouble. I'm sure they told you I tried to run."

He grinned. "Don't worry about that. You aren't the first conscript to try to run and I'm certain you won't be the last. I found it ironic that Malcolm was the one who had to catch you, as he tried to run away from Duncan after he was conscripted."

"He... Malcolm was conscripted?"

Riordan felt like kicking himself. He'd assumed Malcolm and Alistair would've told her to help her become less hostile and more sympathetic, but apparently the two young Wardens had overlooked that particular opportunity. "Yes. I didn't know he hadn't told you, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. It is not my story to tell. But you might want to hear it if he will ever tell it to you. It would help you understand him."

"The other night, on watch, I tried to talk to him. I mean, I finally asked him about his mabari, you know, if it was really a mabari. He told me he was, and then he mentioned something about how he'd gotten the dog. He brought up his brother, and I assumed he meant Alistair. I made the mistake of asking him and the conversation went nowhere from there. He talked to me, I mean, but he just shut down at anything that might've meant something."

"Alas, it is not my place to tell that story, either. I am sorry. But let it suffice for me to say that while you might think he is unsympathetic to your plight, he might be the person who is the most understanding of your position. More than you know. Perhaps even more than I know. I hope that one day, you will understand that."

She nodded slowly. "Me too. I know I can't be angry forever, but it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. Here's one question you should be able to answer for me, though. Who is Duncan?"

Riordan felt the pain of his friend's death travel across his face before he could stop it. "He was the former Warden Commander of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. He was one of the many Wardens killed at Ostagar. And he's the man who recruited both Alistair and Malcolm into the Order."

"And a friend of yours, I take it?"

"Yes, he was. We had the same Joining, many, many years ago. You see, in time, the Grey Wardens become a sort of family to you. The other Wardens, they understand what you go through, they understand what you have given up, and they understand where you will end up at the end of your life. Duncan was a good friend of mine, yes. And for the younger Wardens, like Alistair and in part, Malcolm, he was a good mentor. I do hope that one day you'll find your fellow Wardens to be brothers and sisters as much as they can be. While I don't presume to think they could ever replace the clan you had to leave behind, they can be something of a family, in time."

"Maybe," Líadan said softly.

Riordan wondered how his friend would have handled this entire situation. Most likely, just as he was dealing with it. But Duncan had always had an easy grace and rapport with recruits and new Wardens, even the reluctant ones, that he imagined his friend might've had an easier time with this group. Riordan's fingers wandered to the hilt of his friend's dagger, and after a moment of thought, removed the sheath with the dagger still in it, from his belt. Then he handed it to Líadan. "Take this. It was Duncan's."

She gaped at him then the weapon she now held in her hands. "I couldn't—"

"Think of it as a welcome to the family gift. Duncan understood what it meant to have only the Grey Wardens left to you for family, because the Wardens were all the family he had. When he was conscripted, his parents had long died, and he had no brothers or sisters until he joined the Grey Wardens. Duncan was also an involuntary conscript, as you are. He understood, Líadan. And I think he would believe you to be an appropriate person to carry his blade. I do, anyway, and he listened to me most of the time."

Líadan blushed. "Thank you, I guess."

"Just think on what I said about your anger. That is all I ask." Before he could say anything more, Zevran motioned for the others to stop and ran back down to where they waited.

"I think I sense darkspawn ahead, but perhaps only one? But this cannot be, these are the Deep Roads. There should be many more, no?" the elf asked, confusion etched on his face.

Riordan focused his mind on feeling out darkspawn and came to the same conclusion as the Antivan. "I also sense just one of the taint, but it is not a darkspawn. Nor is it a Grey Warden."

"A ghoul," Malcolm said. "It must be a ghoul."

Beside Riordan, Líadan flinched. He quickly made note of it to speak with her about later and what happened to turn people into ghouls and how they had to be dealt with. Even if they were a dear friend.

"Could be," said Alistair. "We'll just have to be on the lookout. At least it isn't a patrol of darkspawn or anything."

Riordan gave a short nod. "I agree. We'll be more wary, but we must press forward." The group walked through a wide doorway that stretched across the entire road. The doors had been bashed into the walls long ago, and hung open for anyone's entry. Then they were in the middle of buildings and homes carved from stone that lined thin streets. Dwarven statues formed centerpieces for open areas, bearded dwarves holding double-headed hammers, or working an anvil.

"Ortan thaig," Oghren announced.

Malcolm was the first to find the near-ghoul. A dwarf nearly lost to the taint noticed the strangers and shouted at them before bolting down a side tunnel. Malcolm gave chase, with the rest of the group following him through the narrow passage. They emerged into a small cavern that looked to be a campsite. There was a bedroll, a tent in a serious state of disrepair, a blackened fire pit, and even shattered bits of pottery piled in the corners.

The dwarf threw up his hands in alarm when he saw they'd followed him. "There's nothing for you here!" he said. "It's mine! I've claimed it!"

Malcolm frowned and, being the closest to the dwarf, asked, "Claimed it? Are you part of the clan who lived here?"

The near-ghoul's brow furrowed. "The clan? No! But it's still mine! Ruck's been here for years now, and no shiny Surfacer will take him away. Begone, you! You'll bring the dark ones back, you will! They'll crunch your bones! Crunch your bones!"

Malcolm blanched, but persisted. "I... I just wanted to talk to you."

Ruck covered his ears. "No! No talking. You leave my territory!"

Malcolm shot a helpless glance back at the others, at a loss about what to say. Zevran, apparently having noticed the vast amount of junk Ruck had in many piles in the small cave, said, "We are not here to steal anything, I promise."

The near-ghoul spun to face Zevran, his shoulders hunched forward, as if trying to hide his tainted body. "You... you won't take anything from Ruck? You won't take his shiny worms? Or pretty rocks?"

"We would never dream of it, friend dwarf," Zevran replied.

Ruck's posture relaxed a little, his eyes darted around a bit less. He was waiting, it seemed, for another question. Unease flitted through Riordan as he noted the progress of the corruption along Ruck's skin, mottled and darker than any bruise would ever be. This man was no dwarf, not any longer. It was surprising that the dwarf could even converse at all. Had they found him sooner, with this amount of willpower, he could have been helped, perhaps become a Warden, though it would also depend on his ability to fight. But it was too late for that and Riordan did not look forward to how this encounter would end. Riordan moved forward and stood between Zevran and Malcolm. "How long have you been here?"

The near-ghoul shrugged. "Too long. I must think... five years? Six? Ruck no longer remembers the smells and sights of the city."

"Don't you wish to return to Orzammar? To go home?" Líadan asked.

Riordan glanced back and raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn't expected her to say anything, not that he objected to it. She'd just surprised him.

Ruck held up his small, calloused hands. "Ruck cannot, no, no. Back at the city, Ruck would be arrested and thrown into the mines. That is where I fled from! Ran away! Here, I live free. I... collect my rocks and worms and shinies. Ruck cannot return. Once you eat, once you takes in the darkness, you not miss the light so much." The dwarf looked directly at Malcolm. "You know, do you not? Ruck sees, yes. He sees the darkness inside you."

Malcolm stepped back at Ruck's recognition of the taint. "That... is a frightening thought."

"How did you survive here?" Líadan asked.

Riordan wished the young elf hadn't asked for specifics, but nothing could be done about it now. They would just have to hear an answer more grisly than the near-ghoul had given them before.

"When the dark ones were here, I kept to the shadows. They don't look in the shadows, not if you're quiet. Not if you eat their flesh. Then the dark ones think you're one of them. They leave you alone. But now they're gone."

Líadan made a slight gagging sound in her throat.

"Do you know where the dark ones went?" Riordan asked.

"I thinks they went south. Far, far to the south. That... that is where the dark master calls them. After the dark master awoke, he called his children and they all went. I wanted to go, too, and gaze upon his beauty. Calling, so beautiful. I wish I could go see him but Ruck, no, no, Ruck is a coward." The dwarf looked up at them with his almost uncorrupted eyes and the film of the taint eating away at their edges. "Have I done what you wished?"

Riordan kept the grimace off his face as he moved closer. "Yes, you did fine."

Ruck resumed his nervous fidgeting, as if he could sense Riordan's intentions. "Now you will go? Leave Ruck to his claim?"

"No," Riordan whispered as he quickly drew his sword, "but I will leave you in peace." Then he ran the near-ghoul through without hesitation. Ruck, or what was left of him in all of that corruption, didn't fight back. And Riordan saw relief in the dwarf's eyes, and a silent thanks.

Behind him, Líadan shouted her displeasure about the action. Riordan turned around to find that Malcolm, being the closest person because he'd fallen back, had already clapped a hand over her mouth. "Carrying on like that will only alert the darkspawn if you haven't alerted them already," he said, and then pain lanced across the young man's face and he ripped his hand away from Líadan. "You _bit_ me!"

The elf spun to face the human and shoved him in the chest. Malcolm stumbled back, barely staying on his feet, hands grasping at his chest where Líadan had touched him, face contorted in more pain. When Líadan's hands came away, they had an unmistakable aura of energy. "Don't touch me again," she hissed.

Behind him, Riordan heard a crackle of energy and he knew without looking that Morrigan would be rising to Malcolm's defense. Glares were one thing, he knew, as was a mere push—Malcolm could handle that sort of angry push without any undue stress. But causing the young man potentially fatal harm would bring the witch's defensiveness to the forefront. And not only was there a witch to contend with, but Gunnar had started to growl low in his throat, a warning to Líadan that while his master might continue to be nice to her, the dog might not.

But before Morrigan or Gunnar could do anything, a burst of white light formed over Líadan and she collapsed to the ground. The others were buffeted by the energy of what Riordan recognized as a holy smite, something used to drain a mage of mana, but its size had been kept small and directly on the Dalish elf, the work of a finely trained templar. Not Malcolm, then, but Alistair. The crackling energy behind Riordan fell silent. Líadan's eyes were lit with fury, and not the what now seemed to be mere outrage from before. Wynne helped the young elf up, but not without disapproval in her eyes.

Alistair moved closer to the recovering Líadan. "I won't hesitate to do it again if you ever dare to use magic that isn't healing on any of us. So the next time you get pissed and decide to take it out on that person physically, leave the magic out of it. He can take hits as well as any of us, but not when you decide you won't fight fair."

"He's bigger than me," Líadan said, but in a normal voice, without shouting. She'd at least listened to Malcolm's advice, even though she'd hurt him for giving it.

"He wasn't going to hurt you," Riordan said, stepping in between an angry Alistair and Líadan. Morrigan moved quickly past him and to Malcolm. "He was helping to save everyone's lives to keep your temper from summoning darkspawn. If you wish to be so desperately angry then direct it at me. Preferably without magic, as I am no templar."

"Why did you kill him?" Líadan asked. "He wasn't entirely taken by the taint. He wasn't... he wasn't like Tamlen."

Oghren shoved his way past Alistair. "I can answer that for you, elf," he said with a glance back at Ruck's body. "The ability to live as a human, dwarf, or elf after you've been touched by the taint is very slim. I've seen people be taken by the taint before and I'm sure I'll see it again. It happens in the Deep Roads when you aren't protected. The boy was too far gone. He wasn't a dwarf any longer. By the Stone, Líadan, you Wardens nearly mistook him for a darkspawn when you sensed him. The boy was suffering and you'd have to be blind not to see it. Killing him was mercy, make no mistake. And if I ever get tainted, I would expect one of you to do the same for me. Were you not Wardens, I would certainly do the same for you." He turned to Riordan. "Would you allow me time to do what I can for Ruck's body?"

The senior Warden nodded. "Go ahead. We need to search this thaig anyway, and that will take some time."

Oghren gave him a short nod. "Thank you." Then he started toward Ruck's body, Zevran going with him, and together the two of them moved the dwarf's body to a far, shadowed corner and began covering it with loose stones they could find.

Riordan glanced at Malcolm. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," he said, his voice a little hoarse.

"Good." Riordan motioned toward the entrance of the little cave. "I want you, Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, and Wynne to search the thaig as best you can. Zevran and Oghren will join you as soon as they are done, and I will join you shortly." He turned to Líadan. "You and I need to have a little discussion." Maker, he was getting a headache already. The easy camaraderie from earlier had felt so much like time spent with the rest of the Wardens, before the Blight and before Ostagar, that he'd forgotten that Alistair, barely over a year from his Joining, was the most experienced Warden here aside from himself. "But first, we will help Oghren and Zevran."

Líadan obeyed and carried rocks over to where Oghren stood, stacking them into a cairn above the young, unfortunate Ruck. When Oghren deemed the cairn good enough, he motioned for them to stop. "_Atrast nal tunsha_," he said to the stones, and then left the cave without another word. Zevran followed him.

"He just told him 'may you always find your way in the dark,'" Riordan told Líadan at her questioning look after the dwarf. "It's what the dwarves say for a lot of different sorts of farewells. I have heard it often."

"So are you going to yell at me?" Líadan asked, crossing her arms.

Riordan pinched the bridge of his nose. First he'd had to deal with a nearly suicidal new Warden, and though that had been largely fixed, he now had a nearly homicidal new Warden. Couldn't the Blight be enough? Of course not. These were young people in very troubled times. There would always be something and he was the one with the perspective to help guide them if he could. "No." He didn't mention that it was yelling that had almost started the mess in the first place, if you ignored the ghoul-killing the young elf had objected to. "Though I had assumed earlier that you didn't want Malcolm dead. I see now that I might have been incorrect."

She scowled at the accusation. "If I wanted him dead, he would already be dead."

"Then why the magic with the push?"

"I..." The scowl disappeared from her face. "I don't know. Self-defense, I guess, even though the rest of you assure he wouldn't have hurt me." The hostility quickly returned. "You said I wouldn't be in danger of the templars."

Riordan blinked. "I'm not seeing the connection you're making."

Líadan waved her arms furiously in the direction of the thaig. "Alistair! He hit me with a smite!"

"To be fair, you had just 'zapped' his brother in the chest, as Oghren would say. He was protecting him against further harm from you."

The waving arms folded themselves against the young elf's chest. "He did that because he was protecting his blood brother, then? He would go against another Warden for his brother if it came down to it? Are there even allowed to be relatives serving together in the Grey Wardens?"

"You misunderstand me," Riordan said. "Yes, they are brothers by blood, but they are not the first siblings to be Grey Wardens together and they are far from the last. But Alistair would have come to the defense of anyone in this group who was being hurt. For example, had Morrigan attacked you for some reason, Alistair would have risked Morrigan's fury and used his holy smite on her to protect you. And let me tell you something, he is _much_ more afraid of Morrigan than he is of you. Everyone in this group might not be a Grey Warden, but they fight with us without regard to the danger they face each day with the darkspawn taint. They are as much brothers and sisters as any Warden. As I told you before, the Grey Wardens are as a clan to one another." Then Riordan realized he'd have to commit to making this young woman face her real pain before it got more out of hand than it already was. "If someone had attacked Tamlen, would you not have come to his defense, even if it had been someone else in your clan who had attacked him?"

"Yes. But that's what I did, I tried to protect Tamlen, but Malcolm stopped me. He killed Tamlen, he killed my best friend, right in front of me."

"And yet you said earlier that Tamlen had been more tainted than Ruck. You admitted, out loud, that Tamlen had been entirely taken by the taint. So which is it? Did Malcolm kill your friend or did he kill a ghoul?"

Líadan looked away, biting her lower lip. After a moment, she faced Riordan again, her pale eyes broken with pain. "A ghoul."

"I'm sorry," Riordan said softly.

She looked away, toward the tunnel leading out of the cave. "So am I." Then she looked back at him. "Can we go help search now, please? I'd like to be thinking about something else. Anything else."

"First, you must promise me you will not use magic on another one of us again. Or blades or anything that could cause someone undue harm, unless you are sparring, where you are not to use lethal force."

"I give you my word as a Dalish."

He nodded. "Then I will accept your word."

Líadan started toward the entrance, and then stopped. She pulled a sheathed dagger from her belt and held it out to Riordan. "I assume you want this back?"

Riordan smiled. "Of course not. I gave it to you. It's yours. Just because you lost your temper doesn't mean you're any less of a Grey Warden. I meant it when I said Wardens are as a family to one another. It means we fight and argue just as any other family does. We just happened to be much more trained as warriors than most families, which means we must practice a bit more restraint when we fight. Keep the dagger. Use it as a reminder to not kill your brothers."

She considered the weapon in her hand for a moment and then tucked it back into her belt. "All right. I'll do that, then."

After giving the young elf a short nod, he led them out of the cave and into the thaig beyond. Leliana waited for them just outside, and when they exited the tunnel, the bard put her arm around Líadan's shoulders and drew her aside, giving her the hug the young woman needed that Riordan and the other Wardens hadn't been able to give. Wynne appeared and walked at Riordan's side. "She'll be okay," he said, answering the mage's unspoken question. "She's at least agreed not to kill any of us, which is a start."

"She is as troubled as Malcolm once was," Wynne said.

"Yes, she is. When she was forced to leave her clan, she effectively lost her entire family. This Tamlen had also been her best friend, and she had to see Malcolm kill him when he'd turned into a ghoul. She has admitted to me, and now herself, that Tamlen had indeed been a ghoul and that Malcolm is not to blame for his death. As for the rest... that will take some time and there's nothing else to be done about it. But for now, not killing anyone she travels with is good enough for me." The relief he'd been feeling finally appeared on his face. "And I am happy Leliana gave her that hug. She needed it and I doubt Líadan would've accepted one from me, as fatherly or brotherly as it would have been intended." He smiled despite himself. "Listen to me, my friend. So old that now I see the younger Wardens as children instead of fellow brothers and sisters."

Wynne gave him a good pat on the arm. "I understand. They are so young, except for Oghren, that it is hard not to see them that way."

"That does nothing to help me when I feel old, you know."

The mage gave him an impish grin. "It wasn't meant to. Someone else here has to feel old other than me, you know. Now come with me. They have found something."

Riordan followed Wynne over to where the rest of the group stood around an ancient anvil, with some sort book on the top of it. The book was torn and battered, but intact. Oghren looked up when he heard the other two approach. "It's a message left behind from Branka," he explained. "She took her people and went south, past the Dead Trenches, looking for something called the Anvil of the Void."

"Anvil of the Void?" Riordan repeated.

Oghren shrugged. "Beats me, Warden."

South. Ruck had told them that the dark master had called the darkspawn. Between Branka's information of the Dead Trenches being south, the map from the Shaperate indicating that the Dead Trenches were south, and Ruck's words, Riordan realized that they were indeed on the right path. They were walking right toward the archdemon. Once, as a young man, the thought would have made him shiver. Now, it only made him all the more determined to deliver his sword's blade into the archdemon's skull before it Blighted everything he held dear.


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35**

**Malcolm**

"How do you even wield that axe effectively?" Malcolm asked Oghren as they set up camp at an old way station occasionally used by the Legion of the Dead. "I mean, it's bigger than you are. I'm surprised you can even stand."

Oghren glowered at Malcolm, his hands drifting toward the handle of his battleaxe. "You don't think I can use this? Come over here and I'll hack you down to my size."

Malcolm held up his hands to ward off an attack. "It was just a question, and I think a valid one. And now you're all defensive about your size."

"Well, after that question, don't be thinking I'll share any of my ale with you."

Malcolm plucked at one of the ropes of his tent, making sure it was taut enough. "Is that what that was? I thought something had died in your flask."

"Ha! Only hopes and dreams, boy."

He had no reply, so he shrugged and walked over to where the others had gathered around a small fire Riordan had allowed them to make. Zevran had sat next to the more quiet than usual Líadan. "Tell me," Zevran asked her, "how does that armor protect you at all? Don't get me wrong, it shows off your body in wonderful ways, yet I remain curious as to its protective capabilities."

Líadan's response was to quickly cast a spell Malcolm had noticed a number of times. It made some sort of forcefield that somehow seemed to turn her skin into impermeable rock. To illustrate her spell to Zevran, Líadan then rapped her knuckles against her midriff, the sound echoing on the invisible armor, and grinned.

Zevran raised an eyebrow. "Most intriguing."

When he heard Líadan ask Zevran about his tattoos, Malcolm decided he didn't want to hear the rest of the conversation and joined Riordan and Alistair outside the station. "How's the bite wound?" Alistair asked as soon as he noticed him.

"Healed," Malcolm replied. "It didn't break the skin, at least. And thanks for the help. I'd apparently forgotten I'd had that ability."

"I think you were too shocked about being... shocked."

Malcolm ignored his brother's comment turned to Riordan. "We're going in the right direction, I assume? I mean, between what Ruck told us and what information Branka left in that journal, it sounds like the archdemon is either in or near the Dead Trenches. But we've been traveling for days and haven't really run into anything significant."

Alistair scowled. "The Dead Trenches. Could the dwarves have named it anything more dreadful?"

Malcolm looked out at the darkness beyond the light cast by the fire. "Probably. Even the 'Deep Roads' sounds ominous."

"I suspect the name for these roads merely started out as a description and nothing more," Riordan said. "Only later, after the first darkspawn, did the name become something with much more of a frightening aspect to it. And yes, we are heading in the right direction. Judging from the map and how well I can listen in on the archdemon, we are getting close. Perhaps a half-day or one day left of travel to get there. Though we've been delayed a few days, the archdemon seems to be in the same place where I had tracked it to must continue to avoid the darkspawn as much as we can. One thing with this being a Blight is that if some of them discover us, they won't swarm, since they have, in darkspawn measures at least, something better to do."

"Yes, Blighting all of Thedas. A fantastic hobby, that," Alistair muttered.

"For that, you get first watch," Riordan said, and headed back into the station. A complaining Alistair and quiet Malcolm followed him back inside.

Leliana had handed out food she'd managed to decently prepare and they took it gladly, starving after an entire day spent in the Deep Roads. Exhaustion followed quickly behind the meal, and those not on watch drifted quickly to their tents. He and Morrigan had decided to sleep apart while in the Deep Roads and his tent felt decidedly empty. He'd gotten midwatch, which Malcolm felt was more of a punishment than first watch. You slept, but you had broken sleep, both before and after your watch. As it was, he slept fitfully, dozing at best, chased by nightmares of Highever. Wanting to suffer the memories no more, he gave up on sleep, put his armor back on, and rolled quietly out of his tent. Gunnar stood as soon as he was out and he followed him, nails clacking against the stone underfoot.

He found Alistair sitting quietly outside the main entrance to the station, his sword balanced across his knees, shield leaning next to him. The runes in the sword glowed with the same low intensity they'd had since they'd entered the Deep Roads, detecting the corruption that lined the tunnels, but indicating there were no darkspawn nearby. "Nice sword you got there," Malcolm said.

"Yes, it's all shiny," Alistair replied without looking up. "You could've had it, you know. Too late, though. I'm kind of attached to it now."

Malcolm drew his sword to keep it from scraping against the rock, sat next to Alistair on the short ledge, and settled his own blade across his knees. "Mine's longer."

"Mine's wider."

Malcolm snorted and studied the shadows of the Deep Roads running past the torchlight, unable to continue the ridiculousness of the conversation. "You can go sleep, if you want. Since I'm out here early and all."

"Couldn't sleep, could you? No witch in your tent to tucker you out?"

"Don't even start."

"Oh, fine. Be that way. Ruin my fun." After a moment of quiet passed between them, Alistair said, "We'll have to do something about Arl Eamon eventually."

Malcolm frowned. "Do something? You make it sound like he's Loghain. We have to _do_ something with Loghain, which I imagine involves separating his head from his body. But Eamon? If you'd wanted to do something about him before, maybe you should've thought of that before we went and fetched the Sacred Ashes. Just saying."

"That's not what I meant. You know what's going on with him. He expects to control a lot more than I'm going to let him if I end up on the throne. I can't tell if it's because he wants the control or he's just used to it. But I don't want him under any illusions that he'll be able to control me. I'll not be a marionette."

"That's a big word. Did you have to look that one up?" Malcolm inspected his blade, searching for nicks and wondering if he should've brought a whetstone out with him.

Alistair rolled his eyes."Now you sound like Morrigan. That wasn't very nice."

"She's giving me lessons." No nicks on the blade and it didn't seemed dull enough to merit a trip back into the way station campsite to fetch a whetstone. At Alistair's frustrated sigh, Malcolm looked over at him. "Yes, I do understand your concern, and I have the same ones. But until we've got these armies collected together, we'll just have to let him run things on the political front. There's not enough of us to do otherwise, and I know you know that. Eventually, yes, we'll have to establish with him that you'll be in control and not him. I imagine there'll be a lot of frowning on his part. But I don't think his controlling nature is intentional. At least, I hope not. If he were really controlling, I don't think he'd have married Isolde."

"I told you before, part of him regrets marrying her."

"And yet she stays."

Alistair glared at him. "That isn't fair of you to say, you know. You're mad at him because he's asking you to leave Morrigan, and you're acting as if he should be made to leave Isolde. It's clear that he loves the woman. How else could he put up with her? And we've all seen how he looks at her. It isn't just lust. He loves her and so he won't leave her. Which means we'll just have to... deal... with her. Preferably in ways that don't involve hurting or killing her because that could be awkward."

He knew his brother was right. He could no more ask Eamon to leave the woman he loved than Eamon could ask him. If only he could believe that Isolde really wanted to seek forgiveness, but he couldn't. The last time he'd seen the woman, there had been no repentance in her eyes. Only regret at being caught. Nothing more. "It's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

"Morrigan wasn't responsible for the deaths of over a hundred soldiers, knights, villagers, and children and she certainly didn't try to foist any responsibility on anyone else for it." Malcolm fought the anger rising within him, because he knew it was anger toward Isolde and not Alistair, and that his brother shouldn't have to bear any of it, much less the brunt of it. "I just can't stand what Isolde did. And I can't stand that she won't accept responsibility for it."

"I know what she did was wrong and I agree with you about it. But why does it affect you this deeply? I think her actions have made you more angry than anyone else, perhaps even Bann Teagan. And that's saying a lot. You didn't see how he lit into Isolde after you left the room after Eamon was healed." As Alistair asked his question, Gunnar had rolled over underneath him, exposing his belly. Alistair obligingly scratched it.

Malcolm took a calming breath and slowly let it out before giving an answer. "Because of how I was raised. The nobility, whether it be kings or banns or teyrns or arls, have a responsibility in how their people are treated. Freeholders swear themselves to banns, banns swear themselves to teyrns, and arls are appointed by teyrns to command strategic fortresses that they cannot oversee themselves. The Guerrins were established as the Arls of Redcliffe by one of the teyrns of Highever long ago. Since then, arlings have become practically independent of the teyrnirs they'd once been a part of, but the history is still there. Anyway. What I'm saying is that Redcliffe and its village were given to Eamon to protect and defend. As Arlessa, Isolde held the same responsibility when Eamon was in a coma, just as my mother, well, Teyrna Cousland, would have in my father's, Teyrn Cousland's, stead if he had been ill. Isolde was just so ridiculously selfish that she didn't think of her people. I can understand, as much as I am able, anyway, how she felt she had to protect her son. But after all was said and done, she still wouldn't take responsibility for what had happened. No matter what you do, you need to be able to look people in the eye and accept the consequences of your actions, good or bad."

"And the fact that she hasn't is what really gets you?" Alistair asked.

"Not exactly. More like, if she won't accept the consequences of her actions now, nothing stops her from doing anything equally as bad in the future. And I don't think anyone can change her." He paused as he realized something they _could_ do to impede her future influence. "But... we can do something. We can change her status. Legally, I mean. We can make it so that if Arl Eamon is ever out of commission again, through illness or injury or whatever else occurs, that Bann Teagan will be given charge of the arling instead of Isolde. She'll remain at Redcliffe, of course, and still be Eamon's wife, but she'll have no legal charge of the Arling of Redcliffe at all. Teagan, I trust. Her, not so much. It won't make me any less angry with her, but it would make me feel a lot better having her out of the running for any sort of power."

"Hmm. I believe I like that idea. Very... diplomatic. And political. You wouldn't want to be king, by chance, would you? That sounded like a kingly decision to me."

"Oh, no. There's no way I'd ever volunteer for that. I was happy that Fergus was the heir to the teyrnir, and I'm happy that you're the heir to Ferelden. I'm perfectly content being the spare."

"Damn." Then Alistair twirled the sword in his hands, allowing the torchlight to illuminate the runes. "But you do get a fancy sword out of the deal."

"No deal."

Alistair stood up. "Can't blame me for trying. I'm going to get some sleep, then. Wake Zevran up for the last watch in a couple hours. Oh, and watch out for the little beasties that live in these Deep Roads. I heard they can gnaw your ankles right off."

They broke camp after four more hours, striking out from the way station and in the direction of the Dead Trenches. Within Riordan's predictions, they reached the entrance to the Dead Trenches within a little over half a day's travel from the way station. The Grey Wardens had started to feel the presence of the horde hours before they reached the Dead Trenches. The area ahead of them teemed with them, and over everything, they heard what Riordan explained was the calling of the archdemon in their minds. It was faint, but without a doubt the same song Malcolm had heard during his Joining, after he'd had the concoction from the chalice.

"I remember that song," Líadan said.

Riordan gave her an odd look. "You remember it? You've heard it before?"

"At my Joining," she explained. "Just after I passed out, or while I was passing out. It was hard to tell at the time."

The senior Warden frowned in thought. "I've never heard of a Grey Warden hearing the actual song at their Joining."

Malcolm decided he should speak up and said, "I heard it at my Joining as well."

Riordan shrugged. "Must be due to being Joined during a Blight."

"What song are you talking about?" Leliana asked, moving up to walk near them. "I hear no song."

"Be grateful for that," Alistair replied. "Be very grateful."

They walked through the entrance and passed into a chamber numerous times larger than the one that held the city of Orzammar. A trench, as the descriptive name promised, ran through the middle of it. Feeling the darkspawn below, the Grey Wardens in the group moved forward and stood at the edge of the trench and peered down.

It was filled with them. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of darkspawn marched forward and into a large chasm. A chasm that held a small speck of daylight at the end, somewhere miles away. Then they heard it. First in their minds and then in the flesh, the notes of a song followed by a roar of outrage, and a high dragon flew up from the depths of the trench. It landed on the bridge that spanned the trench, its dead milky eyes looking them over. It took to the air again and flew through the trench, just out of arm's reach. Zevran made to jump for it, but Malcolm held him back.

The archdemon flew higher, spewed a purple fire above them, roared again, and then flew away, into the chasm with its army of darkspawn. Away from them.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Then Zevran pushed Malcolm. "Why did you stop me? I could have reached it. I could have stopped it before it flew off."

"And then what?" Riordan asked, turning to face them."You could've been flipped off its back even if you dug your blades into it. One smack against the stone and you'd be falling to your death thousands of feet below in that trench. It would have accomplished nothing. There was only a slight chance of stopping the Blight here, but we did get what we needed to. We know where the archdemon was and we know it will be appearing on the surface soon." He glanced at Oghren. "Do you know what direction it went in?"

"South, Warden. By the the looks of it, south."

Zevran scowled but didn't put up any further argument.

"That's it, then?" Malcolm asked. "We'll be leaving the Deep Roads now to report back?"

Revulsion washed over Riordan's face before he said, "No. Unfortunately, we have another task we must accomplish. I have sensed something else amongst these darkspawn that we must kill before we leave."

"You look like you're talking about something worse than the archdemon," Alistair said.

Riordan turned to the younger Warden, his eyes the most unsettled any of them had ever seen in the older man. It rattled all of them. "It many ways, this being is, lad. We must destroy it and we must destroy it quickly. This way."

The senior Warden led them over the bridge crossing the Dead Trenches, where they found the gates of Bownammar securely shut. Oghren traced his fingers over the seal. "Huh. I would've thought this place turned to dust by now. Must've been the good dwarven engineering that kept it from falling apart." He pointed to the entrance of a tunnel to the side of the doors. "Darkspawn even had to tunnel around it instead of going straight through."

They warily took to the tunnels, the Wardens staying at the front of the group and the others to the rear. Soon enough the tunnels met with ruins, but not thaigs or one of the roads of the Deep Roads. Instead, they were crypts filled with sarcophagi. Oghren explained that they were the crypts for the Legion of the Dead. Or had been, until even the Legion had to retreat from the darkspawn. Unable to find another route, they continued through the crypts, passing grave after grave, the corruption growing thicker with each step. The hum of the darkspawn was everywhere, but they met with relatively little resistance. The horde truly had gathered in those trenches and was making its move for the surface in even larger numbers than before. They would have to get out and warn everyone, but they hunted something else down here instead. Malcolm though the lack of pragmatism uncharacteristic of Riordan.

"What is this thing we have to kill that it's worth risking our lives for?" Malcolm asked Riordan.

"It's a broodmother," Riordan answered quietly, nearly spitting out the word.

"A what?"

"You will see. And you will wish you hadn't."

After that sort of warning, Malcolm decided he didn't want to press the issue and kept quiet. They passed through a larger tomb with a vaulted ceiling, and then ducked back into smaller crypts. The corruption had nearly spread across the entire stone floor, and it took careful scouting to find the few places they could step without touching the corruption. They stepped into the next crypt and Malcolm heard a voice reverberating through air.

_"First day, they come and catch everyone_._"_

He stopped in his tracks. "Did you hear that?"

The others stopped and tilted their heads.

_"Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat."_

"I heard _that_," Alistair said.

_"Third day, the men are all gnawed on again."_

Fear sprinted up and down Malcolm's spine.

_"Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate."_

"Move forward," Riordan said. "We are getting close."

"To the thing we're supposed to kill or wherever this voice is coming from?" Alistair asked.

"Both, I'm afraid," was Riordan's answer.

_"Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn."_

Weapons were drawn and the group moved faster without anyone having to ask.

_"Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams."_

Alistair looked around at the walls and ceiling even as he picked up his speed. "The acoustics in here are remarkable."

_"Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew."_

Malcolm shot him an odd look. "Acoustics? Really?"

_"Eighth day, we hated as she is violated."_

"Just trying to... make things less... doomed-like."

_"Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin."_

Líadan's pale eyes were wide and frightened, frantically looking around them for the source of the voice as they ran.

_"Now she does feast, as she's become the beast."_

They ran into another crypt, the most corrupted yet. A female dwarf, a near-ghoul, stood still in the midst of the filth of the corruption, surrounded by fleshy sacs. "_Broodmother_," she said, the same voice that had chased them down the tunnels.

Malcolm's body went cold.

Finished with her rhyme, she turned and faced the newcomers. Her skin was corrupted and darkened with the taint, her eyes long gone filmy. "What is this?" she said. "A human? Bland and unlikely. Feeding time brings only kin and clan. I am cruel to myself. You are a dream of strangers' faces and open doors."

"What was that chant?" Líadan asked.

"An elf. I will answer: it is what I've seen. What I will become. I force it into verse so it is fantasy, unreal. That's the only place I can hide, because they make me... because they make me eat. And then... all I could do is wish Laryn went first. I wished it upon her so that I would be spared. But I had to watch. I had to see the change. How do you endure that? How did Branka endure?"

"Branka? You're from her house?" Oghren asked, peering more closely at near-ghoul, but keeping his distance all the same.

The woman turned her milky eyes toward Oghren. "Do not talk of Branka and what she did! Ancestors preserve us, forgive us. I was her captain and I didn't stop her. Her lover and... I could not turn her. Forgive her... but no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become."

Oghren shook his had as if he didn't believe what he was seeing. Malcolm understood that feeling well, because he couldn't believe it, either. "Hespith?" Oghren said. "What did she do? What did Branka do?" Horror and anger entwined together in his tone.

"I will not speak of her! Of what she did, of what we have become! I will not turn. I will not become what I have seen. Not Laryn. Not Branka."

"What did she do?" Oghren asked again.

The milky eyes blinked, as if trying to focus. "Oghren?"

"Yes! Hespith, what did that bleeding nug-licker do?"

The near-ghoul finally relented and answered Oghren's question. "She became obsessed. That is the word, but it is not strong enough. We tried to escape, but they found us, took us all. The men, they kill. They're merciful. The women, they want to touch, they want to mold, change until you are filled with them. They took Laryn, they made her eat the others, our friends, she... she tore off her husband's face and drank his blood. And while she ate, she grew. She swelled and turned grey, and she smelled like them. They remade her in their image. Then she made more of them. Broodmother!"

With that, Hespith took off running faster than any of them had thought, and disappeared around a bed.

The rest of them immediately gave chase. "She's heading right to the broodmother," Riordan said. Another couple tunnels, a few more twists and turns, and with each step, the taint tugged harder, clamored for their attention in a way they'd never felt. Darker, more corrupted than even the archdemon. They ran through an entryway and, on seeing what lay inside, came to a dead halt. Malcolm almost dropped his sword and a glance at the others told him they felt much the same.

In the chamber was a creature made of a level of disgusting that Malcolm had ever witnessed. It was easily twice as tall as he was and four times as wide, and judging by its face, it had once been dwarven. Tentacles wormed out from her sides, several breasts lined her chest, sagging and bobbing with each breath the creature took. "That..." Malcolm started, but he had to stop speaking because if he tried to again, he would vomit.

"Is a broodmother," Riordan finished for him. "Now you see why I insisted we kill it before we departed. Malcolm, Zevran, Líadan, advance with me. The rest of you, use ranged attacks. Stay as far away as you can."

Malcolm steeled himself and plunged forward. The broodmother screamed as soon as she saw their bared steel, her tentacles whipping out to grab them and throw them aside. Acid spewed from her mouth, hissing as it hit their armor, burning if it hit their skin. A tentacle shoved Malcolm aside as he tried to jump to the broodmother's head and he skidded across the corruption-lined floor. Zevran, using the skill he'd apparently wanted to use earlier, vaulted from his place in front of the broodmother and to the top of her back. Once there, he stabbed both of his blades into the creature's head, just below the skull, and pulled them in opposite directions. A final scream knocked them to the ground, and then it was silent.

Zevran slid to the ground, ichor spattered across his face. He absently swiped at it, keeping his eyes away from the broodmother's carcass. The rest of them slowly rose from the ground, also unwilling to look at the remains. Riordan produced another flask from his pocket and lit the corpse on fire before herding them out of the chamber and into the cavern beyond. There, they found Hespith standing next to the edge of a cliff, as if she'd been waiting for them to appear.

"That's where they come from," she said in the same rough, haunted voice as before. "That's why they hate us. They's why they need us. That's why they take us. That's why they feed us. But the true abomination is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed. Branka... my love. The Stone has punished me, dream-friends. I am dying of something worse than death. Betrayal."

Before any of them could reach her, she fell backwards into the crevasse behind her. When they got to the edge of the cliff, they saw her small body splash into the river of lava below.

"So that's the tart Branka took up with," Oghren said.

Malcolm turned to Riordan. "That's where they come from? Does that mean what I think it means?"

Riordan closed his eyes for a moment before answering. "Yes, it does. Grey Wardens are immune to that fate, because we already carry the taint. But those women who are not immune... they are turned into broodmothers by the darkspawn when possible. Human broodmothers produce hurlocks, dwarven broodmothers produce genlocks, elven broodmothers produce shrieks, and qunari broodmothers produce ogres. You see, now, why we had to kill it even though it delays our return to the surface?"

"Yes." And he agreed with it. He even wanted to stay and hunt down all of these broodmothers and slay them all. To hack them into bits so that there would be no more darkspawn. So that no one else would have to go through that, to have to become one of them. And then he realized just how much more danger Morrigan, Wynne, and Leliana were in. Not only were they in danger of dying, or in danger of becoming tainted, but also in danger of being taken by the darkspawn and turned into a broodmother. A fate worse than death. A living death. His body went numb at the mere thought of it and he found that he couldn't even look in Morrigan's direction.

"And now we must find Branka, the one who did this. Who knows how many more she might have with her that she would willingly allow to become a broodmother. If this broodmother and this Hespith were here, she must be close by. And she must be stopped." Riordan turned to Oghren. "I understand that Branka is your wife. If you wish to depart, I will not stop you. But I will not allow you to keep us from stopping her, even if that means we kill her."

Oghren gave Riordan a hard look. "I understand, Warden. And I will come with you. She spent two years feeding my cousins to the darkspawn. She has a lot to answer for. Give me a moment and I'll check these walls for the marks she makes on the stones as she walks, and we'll be right on her trail."

Riordan gave the dwarf a short nod and they waited as Oghren searched. None one said anything. All they could think of was the broodmother and no one wanted to speak of it. After a few minutes, Oghren signaled them over, and they started down yet another tunnel. As they walked, they encountered no further darkspawn or any dwarves or ghouls. Even the corruption started to disappear, receding from the stone around them. Crystals grew from some of the walls. Oghren, from his place at the front leading them through the tunnels, told them they were lyrium crystals. Eventually, they crossed into the largest cavern they'd yet encountered, easily ten times the size of Orzammar. Rock walls formed three sides of it, with a cliff forming the last edge, a river of lava flowing far beneath it. Just past the entryway, stone golems formed two lines, a gauntlet towards the far side of the room, where a huge anvil stood.

Another golem, this one made of metal, walked towards them from its place near the anvil, a large hammer in its hand. Lightning sparked around the golem's plating, and a grill covered where a mouth would be. If Malcolm hadn't known differently, he would've thought it a massive, interestingly wrought suit of armor.

"My name is Caridin," the golem said in a deep, slightly echoed voice. "Once, longer ago than I care to think, I was a Paragon to the dwarves of Orzammar. If you seek the Anvil, then you must care about my story, or be doomed to relive it."

"The Anvil? The Anvil of the Void?" Oghren asked, while the rest of them, Riordan included, merely stared.

"Yes. Though I made many things in my time, I rose to fame and earned my status based on a single item: the Anvil of the Void. It allowed me to forge a man of steel or stone, as flexible and clever as any soldier. As an army, they were invincible. But I told no one the cost. No mere smith, however skilled, has the power to create life. To make my golems live, I had to take their lives from elsewhere. It was a dire shortcut and my king thought it worth the cost. I had only intended to use volunteers but he was not satisfied and soon a river of blood flowed out of this place. Finally, it was too much. I refused and so Valtor had me put on the anvil next."

"If it's revenge you seek," Riordan said to Caridin, "Valtor is long dead."

"I do not seek revenge. The blow of the hammer opened my eyes. My apprentices knew enough to make me as I am, but not enough to fashion a control rod. I retained my mind. We have remained entombed here ever since, and I have sought a way to destroy the anvil. Alas, I cannot do it myself. No golem can touch it."

"No!" a voice shouted from the back of the cavern. "The Anvil is mine! No one will take it from me!"

"Branka?" Oghren said as the rest of them turned to see who'd spoken.

Malcolm heard a creak from Leliana's bow behind him, the familiar sound of her nocking an arrow. Near the bard, magic sprang to life in each mage's hands.

The female dwarf blinked in shock when she noticed Oghren. "Oghren. It figures that you'd eventually find your way here. Hopefully, you can find your way back more easily." She spun away from Oghren and glared at Caridin. "The Anvil will not be destroyed. It is mine. I sacrificed everything to get it, and I will not be stopped."

"Do not let it enslave more souls than it already has," Caridin said.

"You've been trapped here for a thousand years, stewing in your own madness!" Branka shouted at the golem then she turned to Riordan and the others. "Help me claim the Anvil, and you will have an army like you've never seen!"

"Branka, you mad bleeding nug-tail! Does this thing mean so much to you that you can't even see what you've lost to get it?" Oghren yelled.

"The Anvil enslaves living souls. It must be destroyed," Alistair said. "No army is worth that. It's no better than the darkspawn."

Malcolm nodded in agreement, as did the others.

Branka drew her sword and shield. "No! You will not take it! Not while I live!" Then she ran at Oghren.

Leliana fired her readied arrow and it struck true in Branka's throat. The dwarf dropped to the stone, dead before a fight could even start. As Oghren ran to his wife's body, Caridin watched and said, "Another life lost because of my invention. I wish no mention of it had made it into history. But at least it ends here." He looked at the others of the group and extended the hammer in his hand. "The Anvil waits there for you to shatter it, strangers."

Alistair strode forward, took the hammer, and walked up to where the Anvil waited. Then he took a deep breath, raised the hammer, and brought it down with all the force he could muster. The Anvil splintered and shattered into pieces, pouring onto the stone and lava below its pedestal.

"You have my eternal thanks, strangers," Caridin said. As Alistair crossed by him again, he held out a metal hand to stop him. "This sword you carry. I once forged it. It pleases me to see someone so compassionate carries it."

"Um, thank you," Alistair said, a blush forming on his cheeks.

Caridin nodded, and then turned to the rest of them. "_Atrast nal tunsha_," he said, extended his arms, and fell back into the lava far below.

After a moment of silence, Oghren said, "Well, that pretty much beat the sod out of how I imagined it."

"I think that goes for all of us, friend dwarf," Zevran replied.

After helping Oghren perform a memorial of sorts by sending Branka's body to the lava, they set up a temporary camp on the other side of the cavern. There were no darkspawn about, no corruption, there was only once entrance, and it area was free of other enemies. Oghren had even been the first to make the suggestion that they stay there to rest. Malcolm and Alistair tramped back out of the cavern to find some of the wood scraps they'd seen that must've been darkspawn fortifications or things from the dwarven camp at one point. They returned with a sizable amount of wood and constructed a rather large fire out of it. As the group sat around the flames, Malcolm desperately wished he could see the sky. Down here, it was like being trapped with no way out. They were days out from Orzammar, nowhere near the surface, and all Malcolm wanted to do was stare at the sky and count the stars and feel the wind.


	36. Chapter 36

"Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.

In their blood the Maker's will is written."

—_Canticle of Benedictions 4:11_

**Chapter 36**

**Malcolm**

Sleet pelted them in the face as they stepped outside the last metal doors of Orzammar and onto the surface. Malcolm welcomed the stinging sensation because it meant the miles of stone above them had been happily replaced with miles of sky. Beautiful, cloudy, yet wonderfully open sky. Though he wrapped his grey woolen cloak closer around his body, he left his hood down, wanting to obscure as little sky as possible. "Riordan?" Malcolm said.

"Yes?" the senior Warden asked, not looking down from his own observation of the stormy sky.

"You know that stuff you told me before about the sky? Yeah. You were right. Thought you should know."

The comment made Riordan chuckle. "Good to know, lad. Perhaps I should get that in writing for any future discussions."

"We should probably go get the horses. I can't imagine how many sovereigns it must have cost to have them stabled all that time," said Alistair, a scowl forming on his face.

"Uh, give me a moment," Oghren said.

Malcolm looked away from the sky and toward their new dwarven Grey Warden, wondering if it was indeed true he'd heard some fear in Oghren's voice. After fighting with them in the Deep Roads, and the death of his wife, he announced to them that he would be joining them on the surface. Riordan had informed him then that it would involved actually becoming a Grey Warden and not just traveling with them. The dwarf had then informed the Warden in turn that he'd planned for nothing less. After what seemed an interminably long staring contest between human and dwarf, Riordan had given the dwarf a curt nod of his head. Then he'd had Zevran and Líadan take Oghren back to the Deep Roads for the last component they'd need for the Joining concoction. The dwarf had taken to the Joining rather well—he hadn't even passed out, to everyone's chagrin.

"Are you all right?" Líadan asked.

"I feel like I'm about to fall off the world with all that sky up there, but other than that, I'm fine."

The Dalish tilted her head to the side. "I guess that's understandable. I mean, one day you live within the safe confines of a mountain, and then it's gone. Nothing but vacuum, nothing to stop you from being sucked up into the void, nothing to—"

"Stop!" Oghren shouted then brought his voice down to its normal level once the elf fell silent. "One more word and I chop you down where you stand."

Líadan arched an eyebrow. "Fine. See if I'm ever nice to you again."

"If that's nice, I'd hate to see you mean, elf," Oghren muttered.

Malcolm settled a glare at Líadan. "You would, indeed. It involves electricity."

A hand fell on Malcolm's shoulder. "Leave it be," Riordan said from beside him before another argument broke out. "Come with me to see the stablemaster, as we need to be out of this pass before nightfall. I suspect this sleet will be turning into a storm up here once it's dark, and we'd best not be traveling in it."

Malcolm scowled and followed the senior Warden to the stables. "I was only stating the truth," he said to Riordan as they walked.

"And not intending to start a confrontation at all. I see," was Riordan's droll reply.

"If you think I'm going to just let being bitten, and then _electrocuted_ go—"

"What I think is that I agree that the situation between you and Líadan needs to be talked through. But not in front of the gates of Orzammar and while we have much to do before sundown." Even through Riordan's patient voice, Malcolm could hear a slight tone of exasperation. It made him a bit concerned, as Riordan was nearly as implacable as Duncan had been, and he had no wish to truly anger the man. "You already know I've spoken to her once. You'll not be electrocuted again," Riordan finished.

Then again, Riordan wasn't the one who'd been zapped, Malcolm thought. "That's hardly reassuring."

"It will have to do for now." When he caught the look on Malcolm's face, Riordan sighed, signaled to Alistair to speak with the stablemaster, and pulled Malcolm to the side. "You are one of the senior Wardens now, like it or not. You are young, yes, but you must learn to be patient with the younger Wardens, especially with one who was conscripted against her will. You of everyone here should know how much turmoil that causes within."

"I don't recall electrocuting anyone."

"You did get into more than one fistfight with Alistair, if what I've heard was true."

Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "That's different. We're brothers."

"And none of them had anything to do with your feelings about being in the Grey Wardens and how you got there?"

He opened his mouth to retort, but came up with nothing, because Riordan was right. Maker, was the man always right? So instead of replying, he glowered at his feet.

"That's what I thought. You both will need to speak with one another and it will need to be soon. You might want to consider telling her how you came to be conscripted and how you, yourself, tried to run. Out of any of us, Malcolm, the path that brought you into the Grey Wardens is the most like hers. She admitted to me that she did think Tamlen was too far gone to save. What's left for her, I think, is to see you as a person, and not the unfeeling Grey Warden who killed what was left of her best friend."

Malcolm looked up sharply. "Unfeeling? Is that what she thinks? That I didn't feel any regret or sadness when I had to kill Tamlen?"

"Often that's how it looks to someone on the outside. Perhaps part of her thinks differently now, but it's easier to remain angry with the one who did it when you think they don't feel sorry about it."

"I suppose," Malcolm replied, and then wiped at melting sleet dripping from the top of his head and into his eyes. "We need to get going."

"I agree. Let's go."

The group saddled up and rode for the end of the pass before the sleet turned into a snowstorm. Even though it was downhill, due to the lessened visibility from the sleet, it took longer than the first trip up to Orzammar. Once at the end of the pass, they managed to find the campsite they'd used before. It was well-hidden from the road and a good jumping-off point to wherever they would go next and they'd yet to be spotted in it. After the camp was in order and Zevran and Líadan were attempting to cook the evening meal under the tutelage of Leliana, Alistair summoned Riordan and Malcolm over to the fire to show them a letter he'd gotten from one of Arl Eamon's messengers. "A large group of darkspawn, not the bulk of the horde, but a rather large contingent, has been spotted less than a week south of Honnleath. If we ride hard, we can make it there before they do, I think. The Dalish are already there, so it's a matter of us leading them," Alistair said once they were within earshot.

Riordan indicated for Alistair to hand him the letter and he did so. The senior Warden scanned it over quickly, frowning at the start and the frown growing only more deep as he kept reading. "It says that the group approaching Honnleath is at nearly battalion size. That's over five hundred darkspawn. The dwarves won't be marching for Redcliffe for another week. How many Dalish and Redcliffe troops are available?"

"Last report said the Dalish numbers were at one hundred. Once the clans finish gathering, they expect to be over five thousand, but they said it could take more than two months to get up to that number. If they can get messages to all the clans in the Free Marches and Antiva, they told me they could get well over ten thousand warriors. It's been a few weeks since the last report, though, so there could be a lot more," Malcolm said. "As for Eamon's troops, it could be anywhere from a couple hundred to two thousand. It all depends on how many are in the Bannorn right now."

Riordan cursed and gave the letter back to Alistair. "We would be risking a lot to try and defend the town."

"That's presuming we can even get there in time," Malcolm said.

"I understand not wanting to waste troops on something that could be a lost cause already," Alistair said in a remarkably calm voice. "However, Honnleath is only days south of Redcliffe. Right now, that's where most of our allies are. The Dalish clans are gathering near there along with their warriors. The dwarves will be going there soon. All of Redcliffe's soldiers are there now, along with whatever soldiers the Bannorn have sent us. It's our base of operations. Were the darkspawn to lay siege on it now, we would be cut off. Strategically, it's too much of a risk to _not_ do something about the darkspawn near Honnleath."

Riordan sighed. "I know. I just wish we had more time. And more numbers."

"Don't we all," said Malcolm, scowling into the fire.

"All right, then," Riordan said. "At first light, the rest of you will ride for Redcliffe and Honnleath to see if you can get there in time. If the darkspawn there are truly at battalion strength, then it is no mere raid and they are probing the defenses at Redcliffe. Were their attack to be successful, I do not doubt the archdemon will send a much larger group to attack Redcliffe itself. Unfortunately, I will not be with you. While you leave for Redcliffe, I will be heading to Highever and its port on the Waking Sea. From there, I will go to Jader by ship and notify the Wardens there of the archdemon's presence and location. If it can be done, we will find a way to at least get the Grey Wardens of Orlais across the border, even if we must leave the four divisions of Chevaliers behind to do so. As we all saw, the archdemon has massed its army and is heading for the surface. From what Oghren explained, the horde was on a heading to exit somewhere from the southern Deep Roads. The bulk of the horde could even be heading for Redcliffe after this raid on Honnleath. We must get more Wardens into Ferelden, even if it means you must fight this battle at Honnleath without me."

It was Alistair's turn to sigh. "I understand why you have to go, but I'm still not going to like it."

"I don't like it anymore than you do, lad," Riordan said.

Malcolm's mood had soured further at the mention of Highever and he wondered why the senior Warden was going by that route in the first place. "Riordan, why aren't you just taking the rest of the Gherlen's Pass through into Orlais? Wouldn't that be faster?"

"Not if Loghain has patrols waiting at the border. A narrow pass will make it hard to evade a patrol. By sea, however, I should be able to find a ship captain who will take me."

Malcolm sighed. "Fine, but if you're going through Highever, you need to be incredibly careful. That isn't Cousland territory anymore. It's Arl Howe's domain. I'm sure he knows who you are and will be looking for you as hard as he's looking for us."

"I know."

"Should we sent someone with you? Zevran, maybe?" Alistair suggested. "I mean, getting caught while trying to assassinate me and probably not being the best assassin the Crows had aside—"

"What? Slander and lies," Zevran said, looking up from the food preparation Leliana had him doing. "For shame, Alistair."

"But the Crows must have master assassins, the way you describe them. Men with years and years of experience. Why not send them?" Alistair asked.

The elf shrugged. "Why not, indeed? It is a mystery for the ages."

Alistair narrowed his eyes at the Antivan. "Oh, I get it. You're not going to tell me."

Zevran grinned at him. "Morrigan said you were sharp. No liar, she."

Before Zevran and Alistair could get into another of their long discussions, Riordan said, "While sending someone as well trained in stealth, such as Zevran, with me does seem like a good idea, you need higher Grey Warden numbers more than I do. I will be on better lookout for poisoned chalices and ignore promises of hospitality this time. I will go alone."

Leliana indicated that the food was ready and the group quickly started in on it. Riordan relayed the plans for the next day in case someone hadn't heard what had been said and answered any questions with his unwavering logic. Malcolm understood. They needed the support from the Orlesian Wardens and whatever other Wardens had made it to Orlais by now. Unfortunately, they also needed as many Wardens as they could get in the coming pitched battles with the darkspawn. For the first moment since the realization that they would have to stop the Blight hit him, Malcolm felt like they were running out of time. They had the armies granted by the treaties already forming at Redcliffe, but they hadn't yet secured the throne from Loghain's grasp. And now they had to stop the darkspawn from reaching Honnleath and Redcliffe instead of immediately calling for the Landsmeet. They could only hope the bulk of the horde would hold off their strike long enough for the matter of governance to be settled. They needed all of Ferelden's armies, not just whoever had the fortitude to stand against Loghain.

"I have a question for you, Riordan," Líadan said.

Riordan's brows came together in puzzlement. "And what would that be?"

"Were you a volunteer or were you conscripted?"

"Volunteer," he answered, a question in his voice.

Líadan scowled and turned to glare at Zevran.

Zevran flashed a cheeky grin. "I believe you owe me five silvers, yes?"

Riordan burst into full laughter, followed by the rest of them. After awhile, he excused himself to get some sleep while he could. Those not on watch followed suit soon after. Malcolm, having drawn last watch, headed for his tent to attempt getting some uninterrupted rest. He couldn't sleep yet, but the warmth of his tent seemed a lot more appealing than staying out in the sleet and shivering to death from the cold. Gunnar had settled into a spot at the lee side of the tent, happily snoring away. As a light, Malcolm used the glowstone he'd been given before they'd gone into the Deep Roads and started looking at the Grey Warden letters again. Before long, he was as bored as the last time he'd looked and he knew exactly why. It was because he'd find nothing of Fiona in them any longer. That problem had been taken care of and now he found he had nothing to look forward to in reading any of the other letters. He shoved them back into their packet and put them back into his pack. Then he scrounged around for a book to read, he'd picked one up in Orzammar about dwarven society and perhaps that would hold his interest for longer than five minutes.

Or perhaps he should get the papers out and have them put him to sleep. As he came up triumphantly from his pack with the book, the flap to his tent opened without polite clap outside first, and Morrigan slipped inside. Immediately, Malcolm felt guilty because he knew why she was here.

"You have not looked me in the eye ever since we saw that broodmother in the Deep Roads," she said quietly. Her amber eyes held no rancor. Instead, hurt dwelled there.

"I... I'm sorry."

She looked down for a moment, and then, shivering, sat next to him. "I have a request."

He narrowed his eyes. "The last time you requested something of me, my brother got eaten by a dragon."

She rewarded his efforts at levity with a tiny, crooked smile. "This has nothing to do with dragons. Or ancient abominations. It is a simple one: if you are present, and I am ever about to be taken away by darkspawn or have been tainted, I want you to kill me. Without question. Without hesitation."

He closed his eyes, the image of Morrigan succumbing to the taint burning its way into his brain. Morrigan subjected to that awful transformation from human into broodmother. The shrieks that broodmother had emitted being the shrieks of agony from Morrigan.

Hands caressed his cheeks and he opened his eyes to find that Morrigan had shifted her position and now sat directly across from him. "Promise me," she said. "I know you do not wish to see me suffer that fate."

"You could become a Grey Warden," he said, hesitating even as he suggested it. He'd known before without asking that Morrigan would never become a Warden. Alistair had already asked Leliana. Malcolm had the misfortune of hearing the lengthy argument that had ensued. Wanting to avoid the same sort of discussion with Morrigan, he hadn't mentioned it to her before now.

A small frown formed on the witch's face. "You already know I would never willingly subject myself to the taint as it is required of Grey Wardens. And do not look surprised that I know of what the Joining entails. It is hard for one who travels with Grey Wardens not to realize just what gives them their power over the darkspawn. Leliana knows as much as I do. Do not worry, neither of us would divulge the Wardens' secrets."

"I know."

"Promise me," she repeated.

He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. The strength of her gaze and the vulnerability within the depths of her soul held him. It was one thing to end the life of a stranger. One thing to end the life of someone you barely knew with a crossbow bolt. But he knew that in most scenarios where Morrigan would be at risk, it would mean using his most accessible weapon—his sword. Shooting a human being with an arrow or bolt from a crossbow was one thing. Once that projectile left your hand, there was no tactile connection. But a sword... stabbing a human was different. Each life you ended took a little of your own because you were connected by the blade. Your flesh holding the grip of the tool that struck the life from another's body. No matter how quickly you could withdraw your sword, the connection was there. The idea of his sword ending Morrigan's life hit him with the very image of it—her splayed on the ground, his sword piercing her heart, blood puddling underneath her body, soaking into the ground, spilled by his hand.

Then came the image of the broodmother in the Deep Roads. Her hideously twisted body, the screams of outrage and pain and torment. Hespith's terrible chant. If he didn't do as Morrigan asked should she ever be tainted by the darkspawn, that abomination would be Morrigan and it would be his fault. It would be his fault that she would suffer something horribly worse than merely dying. A tear escaped one of his eyes, even as he fought against it, even as he'd shut his eyes again so that he wouldn't have to face her pleading look.

A finger wiped it away and he felt her forehead on his. "Promise me."

"I promise," he said, so weakly that he could barely hear it.

"Thank you," she said. Then she kissed him and pushed him gently down to his bedroll, reminding him of what existed outside of the taint, outside of the darkspawn, and inside the matters of the heart.

Some hours later, a clap just outside his tent woke him up, followed by Oghren shoving his head through the flap. "Your turn on watch, Malcolm," he said, and then he leered when he noticed Morrigan next to Malcolm.

"I'll be right there," Malcolm said, reaching for his armor.

"Out, dwarf," Morrigan said, her tone as icy as her glare.

Oghren smiled, but did as he was asked and left.

"We shall never hear the end of it from him," Morrigan muttered.

"He'd have leered and drooled at you anyway. He did all through the Deep Roads. I thought you'd noticed that," Malcolm said, quickly strapping on his armor.

"I had pretended he didn't exist while we were down there. Made things much easier. Little did I know that Riordan would agree to make him a Grey Warden."

Malcolm shrugged apologetically. "We're in tough times. He's a proven warrior, provided you point him in the right direction, anyway, and he seemed stout enough to survive the Joining. We can't really turn people like that down, as much as a drooling lecher or stumbling drunkard they may be."

Morrigan huffed and said nothing.

After slinging on his shield and strapping on his sword, Malcolm said, "You can stay if you want. It's pretty cold out there, and I think I saw snow in Oghren's hair."

She cast a doubtful look at the tent's entrance. "I am not sure."

"It isn't like everyone doesn't already know," he pointed out as he put on his cloak. "Did I mention that it's really cold? And I recall that bedroll being pretty warm. Downright cozy compared to the snow out there. It's your choice, but you don't get to whine about the cold if you decide to go."

She sighed. "Have it your way. I will remain here."

Then Malcolm ducked out of his tent, wrapped was far into his cloak as he could go. Oghren waited just outside, a leer still on his face. "Stop thinking about her like that," Malcolm said.

"But Malcolm, those—"

"Not one word. I will run you through." Usually, Malcolm would just have threatened someone leering at Morrigan with, well, Morrigan, but dwarves could resist magic. He wondered if Morrigan even knew that.

"He would," Alistair said, stepping up next to them. "And that would be nothing compared to what Morrigan would do to you, anyway."

"Ha!" Oghren slapped his thigh as he laughed. "She couldn't hurt me if she wanted to. Dwarves are resistant to magic. Nothing she could do except glare at me and I'm not afraid of those eyes of hers."

Líadan walked up behind Alistair. "She could kick you in the manhood, you know. That would probably sting a bit."

Oghren's face fell. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Consider the leering stopped. I'd like to keep my manhood the way it is, thank you very much."

Alistair looked between Malcolm and Líadan. "The two of you set for your watch? Yes? Good. I'm going to bed. It's bloody cold out here. Oghren, you should get to your tent before Malcolm kills you in Morrigan's stead and he has to explain that to Riordan."

Then Alistair and the dwarf headed off to their separate tents, leaving Malcolm and Líadan alone. They trudged over to the fire and sat down, the snow swirling around them making it too dangerous to patrol the perimeter. They'd have to rely on Gunnar's hearing, their hearing, and Zevran's traps to keep the camp secure for the night. Taking a glance at Líadan out of the corner of his eye, Malcolm realized what a sly man Riordan really was. He knew without a doubt that the man had intentionally set up this particular watch partnership.

"I think Riordan did this on purpose," Líadan said from across the fire.

Malcolm heeded the senior Warden's words and decided not to act antagonistic from the outset of any conversation with the Dalish elf. "Apparently he's more of a sneaky bastard than I first thought."

Líadan heaved a loud, resigned sigh. "I'm sorry for zapping you with my magic."

Malcolm considered her apology as he remembered he should have his sword and shield out from underneath his cloak should something attack them at the camp. He slipped his shield off his back and propped it next to him, and then drew his sword from its sheath.

"I apologize and so you're going to stab me?" she asked, starting to get to her feet.

He looked up at her curiously. "What? No! I just wanted it close at hand should we be attacked by things other than our allies. Sit down. Maker's blood, I'm not going to harm you. You keep assuming that I'm going to like Isolde always does. She's the one I'd like to see some damage done to, but I won't even hurt _her_, much less you. You're in the clear. So... please stop looking at me like that and sit back down. You're making me nervous."

"What makes you want to hurt Lady Isolde?" she asked, carefully retaking her seat.

"Oh, the usual. I hate her. She hates me." At Líadan's annoyed look, he relented and told her the whole story about what'd happened at Redcliffe with Connor, and the confrontation that'd occurred right after they'd healed Eamon. "Basically, I can't stand her because she won't take responsibility for her actions, and she hates me because I called her an irresponsible bitch but without using the word bitch." He paused, wondering at Líadan's knowledge of Isolde when he didn't recall seeing her once their entire last time at Redcliffe Castle. "Wait, did you meet Isolde when we stopped at Redcliffe?"

"Yes. After you'd left the breakfast table, in fact. She seemed nice enough, aside from the horrid accent. It made me want to..."

"Punch kittens?" he offered.

A smile twitched at the corner of the elf's mouth. "Yes, something like that. And you say she's Orlesian, like Leliana and Riordan? Are you sure they're from the same place? I mean, their accents aren't ones that make you want to hurt cute, innocent creatures."

"Yes. All of them are Orlesian, apparently. Wait, no, not quite. Leliana insists she was born in Ferelden, and Riordan says he was born _and_ raised in Highever. So maybe that's why their accents aren't so horrible. Or something. Maybe it's just Isolde's nature to be irritating. I can't see what Eamon sees in her."

"Her heaving bosom, I imagine," Líadan said, a smirk lighting her face.

Malcolm gaped at her.

The Dalish opened her eyes wide in innocence, though Malcolm wasn't fooled. "What? Don't tell me none of you have thought that? She must be a devil in bed."

He had no words. He couldn't think of a thing to say. Meanwhile, Líadan had nearly collapsed into giggles on the other side of the fire. Malcolm supposed he should be grateful that the elf had finally come out of her angry shell around him, but all he felt was the blush burning across his cheeks.

After what seemed liked an eternity, Líadan finally gained control of her giggles and looked back at Malcolm. "When you blush, that scar really stands out, you know."

He scowled. "I'm aware of that. Maker, people in this camp delight in making me blush. Me and Alistair, all the time."

"Where'd you get the scar, anyway?"

"Before my Joining. Last group of darkspawn we ran into before we found the treaties we've been using. Some stupid hurlock scraped my face with an enchanted blade, and the enchantment was good enough that Morrigan couldn't heal it well enough for it not to scar. Even Wynne couldn't fix it and she's been a healer for, well, forever." The memory of the first time he'd seen Morrigan flitted through his mind and he had to resist a look back in the witch's direction. He couldn't, however, stop the slight smile that tweaked at his lips.

"You love her," Líadan said.

"What?" Malcolm gave the elf an alarmed look.

She grinned. "You do! Don't worry, I think it's cute."

He narrowed his eyes. "And to imagine that as children, my brother and I repeatedly asked our mother for a baby sister. If _this_ is what it would be like, I'm glad we never got one. You're merciless." Then he realized that if he'd had a sister, she probably wouldn't have made it out of the castle, either. She would've been as dead as Oren and Oriana had been, run through in her own bedroom, where it was supposed to have been safe. The crackle of the fire in front of him became the crackle of the flames that had eaten away at his family's castle, his home. Its crackling the background for the screams of his friends and family, the sounds of Howe's betrayal.

"Malcolm?"

He blinked several times, forcing the memories away. "Hmm?"

"Where did you go just now? Did it have to do with your family? The people that raised you, I mean?"

Before he could stop himself, he looked away. "Yes."

"How did they die?"

Malcolm's gaze returned to Líadan. "They were murdered by another member of the nobility who wanted their holdings. The same night I was conscripted into the Grey Wardens, actually. My father was mortally injured, unable to walk, and my mother was determined to stay with him. The Grey Warden Commander, Duncan, had been staying at the castle, looking for recruits amongst my family's knights. At my father's request, he was able to safely get us past Arl Howe's soldiers and out of the castle. In exchange, my father made a deal with Duncan that I would become a Grey Warden. I didn't have a choice in the matter. I said no and Duncan conscripted me. He had to drag me out of that castle. I had wanted to stay behind with my parents. And most likely die. Instead, I lived, and I could see the smoke and fire from the burning castle for miles as we rode away." He sighed heavily, remembering how angry he'd been at Duncan, and how so very long ago all of that seemed. And yet the memories were as vivid as if he'd lived them all hours before. "I was furious with Duncan. We had to travel from my family's castle in Highever all the way down to Ostagar and I barely spoke to him the entire way. I tried to escape once, but he caught me."

"So you really were a conscript."

He frowned. "Yes. You thought otherwise, I take it? Why's that?"

"I don't know. You seemed so very Grey Warden-like. You..." she trailed off, the troubled thoughts returning to her pale eyes.

"I what?"

She focused her eyes back on him. "You seemed so composed after what happened with Tamlen."

"Only on the outside. On the inside, my heart was beating a mile a minute and my mind just kept wishing that Tamlen would magically turn back into a nice Dalish elf. But once he got close enough to you to do damage and no miracle had happened, I had to act. A day doesn't go by when I don't think about it." He studied her, allowing the seriousness of what he had to say show in his eyes. "Líadan, we once had to sweep through an entire town that had been sacked by the darkspawn. I didn't know about how being tainted by the darkspawn, for most people, means death, either immediately or eventually. I thought there would be survivors in the town. That's when Riordan had to explain to me that when darkspawn level a town, there aren't survivors, even if people are still up, moving, and breathing. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, having to kill those people who'd been tainted. I can still see their faces, just as I can see Tamlen's. Grey Wardens sacrifice a lot and it isn't just our bodies. Our souls, too."

For a moment, only the fire spoke with its cracks and pops. Then Líadan said, "I'm sorry I got mad at you for what you had to do."

He shrugged. "It's okay. You needed someone to be mad at."

She said nothing in reply, and they sat quietly in companionable silence until sunup. Then the rest of the group was up and about, hurriedly striking the camp and preparing horses for the hard journey ahead. Riordan was the first one ready to depart.

"I'll find you in Redcliffe," he said to Malcolm and Alistair.

"If we aren't there, we'll leave someone behind to tell you where we've gone," Alistair said.

Malcolm shook the senior Warden's hand. "Stay safe, you sneaky bastard."

Riordan flashed a grin. "Figured it out, did you?"

Then it was Alistair's turn for a handshake. "May the Maker watch over you," he said.

Riordan inclined his head. "May He watch over us all." Then he turned his horse and rode toward the North Road and Highever.

The brothers watched him for a moment, and then turned and gathered the rest of their party for their ride to rescue Honnleath.


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

**Alistair**

They'd ridden hard for nearly three days, stopping only briefly at Redcliffe Castle to summon what troops they could, and get maps of Honnleath and its surrounding area from Eamon's study. The Dalish had two hundred warriors, about three quarters of them archers and the rest melee fighters. Eamon had only one hundred soldiers to spare, the rest were either in scouting parties or in the Bannorn helping the fight against Loghain. Both Alistair and Malcolm scowled at the idea that Fereldan blood was indeed being spilled by other Fereldans, but Loghain's troops had attacked first, and it would do no one any good to allow them to freely slaughter those who would stand in their way. Still, it left over five hundred darkspawn, from the scout's reports, against barely three hundred. From Redcliffe, they'd had a forced march to Honnleath, trying to beat out the darkspawn.

Already, before he could see anything, Alistair felt the burning pull of the taint. There were indeed darkspawn, and there were a lot of them. The group galloped over the crest of the next hill and Alistair pulled his horse up short. From their vantage point, they could see the entire valley where Honnleath sat, and it looked worse than Alistair had imagined. The farmland surrounding the village was blasted and blackened by both the Blight and fire.

He held up his fist to signal a halt, and it was passed down the lines.

Malcolm pulled up next to him. "Andraste's ass, we're too late."

"For the villagers, maybe. But we can still deal with the darkspawn before they rejoin the horde," Alistair replied, and then signaled for the Dalish and Redcliffe commanders to approach. The village sat in a circular valley ringed by hills on all sides, with only a narrow gap along the river's edge that was entirely flat. Because the land had been dedicated to farming, there were few trees in the way. The darkspawn were currently either in the village proper or in the fields to the east of the village. Alistair and his party had the high ground, and for the moment, the element of surprise. "How many darkspawn do you estimate down there?" he asked as two commanders joined him and Malcolm.

The Dalish commander, Ailís, frowned as she studied the fields below them, her polished ironwood bow on her back reflecting the mid-morning sunlight. "I'd say around four hundred."

"Garvan?" Alistair asked the Redcliffe commander.

"I agree," said the stocky, powerfully built man. "We're looking at about four hundred darkspawn down there. Most in the eastern field, the rest in the village."

Alistair studied the field for a few more minutes. "Ideas?"

"Leave the archers on the high ground, ringing around the hills above the fields," Ailís said. "You could run a small force through the gap while the archers gain the attention of the darkspawn. We have enough archers to set up a killing zone across the entire east field."

"Do it," Alistair said. "Quickly and quietly. Wait for my signal to begin firing. One of the mages will fire a bolt in the air. You'll know it when you see it."

Ailís nodded curtly and ran back to her warriors. "And my men, Prince Alistair?" Garvan asked.

Alistair managed not to flinch and internally congratulated himself for not doing so. "I want half of them to stay in reserve with the archers, ready to run down the hill and into the field in case the darkspawn get too close. The other half I want with me, running through the gap into the valley and taking the darkspawn on our flank. We need to get moving and get into position before the darkspawn realize we're here."

Commander Garvan clapped a fist to his chest and rode to his men.

Malcolm gave his brother a sidelong look and an accompanying smirk after the commander had left. "Hey, you didn't flinch."

"Shut up and ride, we've got a lot of darkspawn to kill." Even though he tried to sound cross, he didn't quite pull it off. The humor in the face of the darkness helped, though he'd be damned if he'd tell his brother that. He kicked his horse back into a trot, heading for the gap. Half of Redcliffe's forces fell in behind him, while the others quietly followed the Dalish archers just below the hilltops. It wasn't long before they'd reached the gap, the soldiers close behind them.

Alistair dismounted, and the rest of the party followed. He handed the reins to a Redcliffe squire and they left their horses with a small group of squires and a few soldiers. At a nod of Alistair's head, Wynne sent a bolt of lightning into the sky and the Dalish rained arrows onto the unfortunate darkspawn. They were deadly accurate and the first two volleys took out nearly half of the darkspawn in the eastern field. The rest of the darkspawn dropped what they were doing and ran for the archers. Alistair signaled the charge for the melee fighters and they poured through the gap and right up behind the howling, raving darkspawn. Then his contingent entered the fray.

Two hours later, the darkspawn were all dead, along with ten Dalish and twenty Redcliffe soldiers.

The commanders told him that considering the odds, their side had done incredibly well, but to Alistair, thirty dead was thirty dead. He assigned details of unwounded and gloved soldiers to gather the darkspawn bodies and burn them, with Oghren directing them. Then he had Morrigan, Wynne, and Leliana with two Dalish healers set up a field clinic of sorts, enough to get people well enough to go back to Redcliffe on their own two feet if it could be done. Then he gathered up the Wardens left to him and headed for the village proper. They had a final sweep and burn to do before they could leave the remains of Honnleath behind. As they walked, Alistair noticed things they hadn't taken the time to see before. Bodies hanged from lampposts, as it seemed to be a calling card of sorts for the darkspawn. To Alistair's dismay, the town's walls seemed to have fallen into disrepair many years ago. Had they been properly maintained, they could have held the darkspawn at bay a bit longer.

Once they reached the first house, Alistair took a deep breath, and then explained the process to Zevran and Líadan as Malcolm scowled nearby. "We have to go into every house and check for anyone who is still living. Keep your taint senses as aware as you can. If you sense the taint in anyone, kill them. Do not hesitate. Do not falter. If they are tainted, they will either die a slow, agonizing death, or they will turn into ghouls, which is just as agonizing and poses a huge threat to everyone they would come into contact with. I know it hurts to do it. I know it seems wrong even though they don't look like ghouls yet. But it must be done. If we don't kill them, they will die a horrible death and they will end up Blighting as much as the darkspawn would until they die from the taint. As Grey Wardens, this is something we do so that other people don't have to. And once we finish going through every house, we burn the village to stop the spread of the taint."

Zevran gave one short nod, his jaw firmly set, his light brown eyes pained, but understanding. Líadan looked less convinced, but nodded anyway.

Malcolm picked up on it. "Líadan, they will turn into what Tamlen did if we don't kill them," he said softly. "We talked about this the other night."

"I know," she replied. "I just hate it."

Alistair reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We all do."

The Dalish nodded again, this time with confidence, and they set into the houses. It was as agonizing as the search in Lothering had been, perhaps even more so because the battle here had been so recent that finding people still living held a much higher possibility. But as they looked, they found bodies upon bodies, and none of them still breathing. Each dead body they passed served to flare Alistair's anger at Loghain. If they had more Grey Wardens, they wouldn't have been so far away when the scouting report came in. If they had more Grey Wardens, they could've done something when they'd located the archdemon. Maker, if they only had more soldiers, they could've attacked the darkspawn right away, shoved their army right down the horde's throat and stopped them from Blighting anything else. Instead, they were left to clearing out already sacked towns and having to kill those who had been tainted by the darkspawn and left to die.

As they stepped outside a house, the tall tower in the center of the village rumbled mightily and collapsed, its top half crashing into several homes, crushing them underneath its stones. No cries of terror sounded, no screams came from the buildings that had been crushed. Dust rose up from the rubble to join the pall of smoke over the valley.

"I guess that means we don't have to search those houses," Malcolm said. "Though I don't know if that's good or bad."

No one had a reply, and so they continued up the worn wooden steps set into a small hill running near the middle of the village. Wordlessly, the group swept the rest of the houses until they were left with only the door at the bottom of the broken tower to check. As they stood outside the door, Zevran pointed at a statue in the middle of the clearing. "That looks like a golem, no?"

"Remarkably so," said Malcolm. "A lot like the ones Caridin had with him, in fact." Frowning, he squinted at the statue to get a better look. "It's even got dwarven runes on it. Too bad Oghren isn't here to read them. And too bad the Anvil of the Void needed souls to make golems. Otherwise, an army of golems would've been great to have."

"We'll make do with dwarves," Alistair said, and then sighed. "Come on. Let's go finish the search under this tower and get out of here. The sooner we get back to Redcliffe, the better." No one disagreed, and they opened the door and descended into the darkness of the tower's basement. The anteroom was empty, but the taint pulled Alistair in the direction of the next room. The four of them walked through a doorway to find a few darkspawn growling their way through a library. On seeing the Grey Wardens, they snarled and attacked.

By numbers, they were evenly matched, but in skill, the darkspawn were quickly slaughtered. The tug didn't go away once the first group was dealt with though, so they kept their weapons drawn as they crept through the rest of the basement. After another hallway, they quietly stepped into a lab with an emissary and several hurlocks and genlocks. Alistair and Malcolm both called a holy smite on the emissary and Zevran flanked and finished him off. The worst threat taken care of, they entered into a melee with the hurlocks and genlocks.

Alistair used his shield to crush the throat of one hurlock and his sword to run him through. Malcolm fought at his side, methodically working his way through the small darkspawn crowd. Zevran dropped in and out of the shadows, crippling several darkspawn for Líadan to finish off with her magic-driven sword. Once the darkspawn were taken care of, Alistair noticed that some sort of magical barrier blocked off a third of the room and he counted six people and a little girl behind it. He frowned.

Zevran noticed Alistair's frown from his spot collecting a letter and a battered journal from one of the lab's desks. He pocketed the book and paper and walked over to where his fellow Warden stood. "Problem, yes?"

Alistair sheathed his sword and folded his arms across his chest."I don't know."

"I don't sense the taint in them, either," Malcolm said, stepping up beside them.

Líadan stared at the barrier. "I've never seen a force field like this."

"I have," Alistair said. "It's like the one Wynne used to keep the demons from getting to the children at the Circle Tower."

"So if they aren't tainted..." Líadan started.

"Then we save them by letting them out and escorting them to the camp," Malcolm finished, and then grinned. "Actual survivors."

Alistair grinned as well. Something good had come out of this after all. He approached the barrier.

"By the Maker, we're saved!" a woman behind the barrier called out.

A tall, blond headed man hit a trigger on his side of the wall and the barrier disappeared. "You weren't sent by the bann, were you?" he asked. "To save us?"

"No, we're Grey Wardens," Alistair replied. The bann for the Honnleath area had sided with Loghain and was, by the last report, in Denerim. And these refugees could find out about the whole prince thing later, from the soldiers and everyone else they'd be traveling with back to Redcliffe.

The man smiled at them. "Grey Wardens? Here? Thank the Maker for our luck!"

Alistair resisted a sarcastic comment. They rarely heard that sort of happy sentiment anymore. Usually, Wardens showing up lately meant bad news, death threats, and other kinds of general crankiness. "Who are you?"

"My name is Matthias. My father was Wilhelm, mage to the arls of Redcliffe. That was one of his defense mechanisms that kept the darkspawn away from us. This was my father's laboratory."

Wilhelm. The name sounded familiar. Alistair remembered learning that a Wilhelm had been present at many of the battles of the Rebellion.

"Is this the Wilhelm with the golem?" Malcolm asked from beside him. "The one that fought with King Maric and Teyrn Loghain in the Rebellion?"

The statement brought a scowl to Matthias's face. "Yes, that was him. A hero in the war against Orlais and what did he get? One day my mother found him outside the tower, with so many broken bones she could barely recognize him, and Shale standing over him just like it is now out in the center of the town. My father deserved better than that."

Alistair frowned. "You mean that statue of a golem out there is actually a... golem?"

"Yes. Why? Do you want it? You know what, the control rod is over in that desk. Well, a control rod, but who knows if it's Shale's. The activation phrase is 'dulen harn.' Though I'm not sure you'd really want that damn thing. But if you find a way to wake Shale up, it's yours now. Maybe you can get it to fight darkspawn for you." He sighed. "Now, while we appreciate the rescue, if you'd just let us get to getting things right in this village again—"

"You have to come with us," said Malcolm. "Your entire town has been sacked and is already succumbing to the Blight. Once we get you out, we have to burn it all. I'm sorry."

Matthias gaped at him, and then looked to Alistair. "He's kidding, right? He's just got a really serious case of gallows humor?"

Alistair slowly shook his head. "He's quite serious. If we don't burn the town, we risk the Blight spreading even further. There's already four hundred dead darkspawn out there. When we leave here, we'll light these darkspawn on fire as well."

"I..." but Matthias gave up the argument before he even started. Instead, he shrugged, picked the little girl up, and started up the stairs. Zevran grabbed the control rod Matthias had pointed out, and then he and Malcolm quickly piled the bodies together and set them on fire, having procured more of the fire potion.

The fire crackled behind them as they walked. The little girl looked fearfully behind them, as if she expected a darkspawn to hop out at any time and kill them all. Alistair wished he could make the child's worries go away, that he could make the Blight disappear and her home be safe and not wiped away from the face of Thedas by the darkspawn. But he couldn't. There was nothing he could do except lead her to Redcliffe, where he hoped he could keep her and her family safe.

"What's your name?" Líadan asked the little girl.

"Amalia," she answered in a shy voice. "What's yours?"

"Líadan."

"Are you a Grey Warden, too?"

"Yes."

The girl's eyes opened wide with surprise. "I didn't know a girl could be a Grey Warden!"

Líadan grinned. "Someone has to keep the boys in line, right?"

Amalia, little girl though she was, shared the conspiratorial smile of women with the Dalish elf. "I suppose."

Alistair, though he was one of the parties whom the slight had been leveled against, was grateful anyway. Líadan had done a good job of distracting the little girl for at least a little while. As they got to the tower's door, he pulled Líadan to the side. "Can you take these people back to where Wynne has the field clinic set up? I want them checked out for injuries in case we missed something. We'll see about this golem and join you there."

Líadan gave a short nod and the group exited the tower.

Outside, they found Oghren waiting for them, tapping his booted foot on the hard ground. "About time you came out here," he said. "Bodies are being burned as we speak. Everyone that was injured is mobile, so we've got the troops readying for the march back to Redcliffe now, and we'll stop for a night camp just before sundown." He waved his hand at the refugees. "Who're these folks?"

"Survivors," Malcolm said.

Líadan stepped forward and motioned for the small group of villagers to follow her. "Let's get you up to the camp before the soldiers start their march back." The villagers quietly followed her lead. The Wardens left behind watched them go.

"Don't know if you noticed, Warden," Oghren said to Alistair, "but there's an actual golem standing right in the middle of this village."

"We noticed," Alistair replied. "One of the villagers gave me the activation phrase and a control rod, but he wasn't sure if it's the right particular rod for this particular golem. I figure I might as well try it out anyway before we burn the village. It would be stupid not to."

Oghren nodded. "Aye. Let's give it a go."

The four of them cautiously moved to the front of the golem and studied it closely. Alistair wondered if it truly was the golem that'd fought with his father during the Rebellion. It would be fitting if it was, in a way.

After a few minutes, Malcolm glanced over at his brother. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Are you going to say that stupid phrase or not? We can't just keep staring at this golem, no matter how cool it looks. Because, not only do we have stuff we need to be doing, but we look pretty stupid just staring at it."

Alistair sighed. "Fine. Dulen harn."

For a moment, nothing happened. And then the ground shook as the golem moved, stamping its legs as if shaking off stone dust, rolling its stony shoulders as if getting the kinks out of muscles. Slowly, its head drew down from its gaze at the sky to regard them with eyes of white light. "I knew the that the day would come when someone would find the control rod. And not even a mage, this time. Probably stumbled across the rod by accident, I suppose. Typical."

Alistair scowled up at it. "You could be more thankful, you know."

The golem's stony brows drew together. "It thinks I should be thankful? Well, of course it does. Why would it not? I stood here in this spot and watched the wretched little villagers scurry around me for, oh, I have no idea how long. Many, many years."

"That would be really, really boring," Malcolm said.

"You have no idea," the golem, Shale, if Alistair recalled correctly what Matthias had told him, said. "Tell me, are _all_ the villagers dead?"

Alistair glanced in the direction where Líadan had led the survivors. "Not all of them, no."

He could've sworn the golem frowned. Yes, that was _distinctly _a frown. "Some got away then? How unfortunate."

He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't care for them, I take it?"

Shale scoffed. "Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and after thirty years as a captive audience, I was as familiar with these villagers as one could be. Not that I wished their fate on them, no, but it did make for a delightful change of pace."

Malcolm snorted beside him and Alistair shot him a glare before asking the golem, "Do you have a name?" He wanted to make sure he called the ten feet tall stone creature the correct name so that he didn't get crushed for bad manners.

The golem shrugged. "Perhaps. I may have forgotten after all the years of being called 'golem.' 'Golem, fetch me that chair.' 'Do be a good golem and squash that insipid bandit.' And let's not forget 'Golem, pick me up, I tire of walking.'" Then it frowned. "It... does have the control rod, doesn't it? I am awake so it must."

Alistair frowned. "Is something wrong?" A golem gone wrong seemed like it could be a very bad thing. Along the lines of a golem killing its former master sort of bad.

"I see the control rod, yet I feel... hmm. Go on, order me to do something."

"Um, throw Oghren as far as you can."

"Hey!" Oghren shouted. "No dwarf tossing!"

"Too bad, I'd like to have seen that," Malcolm said. Oghren punched him in the leg, but it just made Malcolm laugh.

"And... nothing," said Shale, ignoring the human and the dwarf. "I feel nothing! I feel no compulsion to carry out its command. I suppose this means the rod is broken?"

Alistair tapped a finger on his chin. "So, what now? You go on a killing rampage?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the golem said, sounding a lot like Morrigan in some respects. Alistair was starting to think that the golem and the witch would get along wonderfully. "Well, I wouldn't mind killing the birds. Those evil birds and their foul droppings. I could crush them all! Hmm. I suppose if I can't be commanded this means I have free will, yes? It is simply... what should I do? I have no memories beyond watching this village for so long. I have no purpose. I find myself at a bit of a loss. What about it? It must have awoken me for some reason, no? What did it intend to do with me?"

"I hadn't given it much thought, actually."

"I see," Shale said in a tone that sounded so much like Morrigan that Alistair started to suspect the witch had shapeshifted into a golem. "Wonderful. I suppose I have two options, do I not? Go with it or... go elsewhere. I do not even know what lies beyond this village."

"You could go with us," Malcolm said, "but you did kind of kill your former master."

The golem's eyebrows raised. "Did I? I remember that I had a former master. The mage with the furry brows who poked and prodded and barked orders. Did I kill him? I hope I did kill him. Perhaps the last order he barked was, 'Golem! Stop crushing my head!' Ha!"

Malcolm laughed. "Okay, I like you. Alistair, it's got to come with us. Come on. Besides, Loghain will see it and he might wet himself. This could even be the same golem that fought with our father in the Rebellion."

"True." He turned to the golem. "All right. You're welcome to come with us if you want."

"I will follow it about, then. And I am called Shale, by the way."

"Alistair," he replied. "Even though I have a feeling you'll keep calling me 'it' anyway."

"Yes. Very likely," was the golem's reply.

They took the same path out of the village that they had taken into it, lighting the houses on fire as they passed. The squires had brought their horses to be with the main section of the army, so they continued toward the eastern fields, where the thickest smoke was at this point. The smell was horrid and they were of no mind to stay in the area longer than they had to. Quick explanations about Shale were made once they reached the edges of the battlefield, and then the soldiers, Dalish, and the Wardens and their companions set out. They left the smell behind them after an hour, the smoke behind them after three. Half an hour before sunset, the commanders called a halt and ordered for a camp to be set up. Alistair realized happily that he and his companions wouldn't have to stand guard. For once, there would be rank and file soldiers for that chore.

The feeling in camp, despite the casualties, was a cheery one because they'd killed so many darkspawn in the battle. Alistair knew that for these people, it was a large horde they'd dealt with, because they hadn't seen the true horde. The horde that was now pouring out of the Deep Roads and onto the surface in Ferelden. He caught bits of chatter here and there about him and his good leadership in the battle, which was a surprise to him, as well as the success the Grey Wardens would have, and the possibilities of Loghain stepping down. Already, they said, the bastard princes had done more against the Blight than Loghain had. Maker, Alistair thought, it'd just been a single battle, and not even a large one at that.

"You hearing what they're saying?" Malcolm asked him as he fell into step next to him as he walked toward the mess tent.

"About us? Yes. It's disconcerting."

"It's a good thing. I figure, anyway. They think you're a good leader."

"I think they're delusional."

Malcolm grinned. "Aw, they love you, too, I'm sure."

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Why are you in such a good mood? You know the reality of the situation as well as I do. The darkspawn we defeated today are nothing compared to the real horde that awaits us."

"Because everyone else is. Yes, we lost thirty people today. Good people. We couldn't save the town. But even though we got here to find a sacked town, there were still actual _survivors_. You remember what Riordan said back at Lothering, right? When darkspawn sack a town, there are never any survivors. Guess what? We beat the odds today. We found untainted people even after darkspawn had demolished their village. We had a force of just about three hundred and we managed to kill over four hundred darkspawn. Even in the face of thirty deaths, that's still success. And just... just look at these people, Alistair. Feel the emotions in the camp. These people have hope. When's the last time you felt any hope from a group of Fereldans?"

Then Alistair thought over the past several months, reaching more and more into the past, until the night of the Battle of Ostagar, when they had all hoped, they had all believed, that they would win the battle. That Cailan and Loghain and the Grey Wardens would bring them through to victory over the darkspawn. Hope had been massacred that day, along with the Fereldan army, by the darkspawn and Loghain. He looked around the camp again, listened to the bits of conversations he caught, eyes jumping from campfire to campfire dotting the clearing, and heard what his brother heard—hope. For the first time since the defeat at Ostagar, they had hope.

He smiled.

Malcolm threw his arm around his shoulder. "Glad you see it, too. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?"

"It does." And it did.

They arrived at the mess tent in good spirits and with wickedly growling stomachs, courtesy of being Grey Wardens. As they walked into the large, open-sided tent, the soldiers grouped there noticed them and immediately stood up. Alistair and Malcolm came to a sudden stop, startled at the reaction, and having no idea what to do. Really, they just wanted to eat, and Alistair had no idea how to tell these soldiers that without sounding rude.

"Carry on," Malcolm said.

The soldiers fell right back to their eating. Alistair gave his brother a curious look.

"What? Oh. Raised the son of a teyrn. I've dealt with that before. Get used to it. And just wait until they really like you and start cheering. _That_ gets awkward."

"I'll bet." Alistair quickly got food and practically ran back to their little camp's area placed in the middle of the entire encampment. The commanders and their lieutenants had insisted on the positioning, and Alistair couldn't fault them for their arguments. And, it had led to the happy result of not having to pull a watch at night. The others were already there and gathered around their own small campfire, looking weary but each of their eyes reflecting the same feeling of hope that seemed to have taken over the entire camp. Even Morrigan looked hopeful, though she complained bitterly that she had to be surrounded by this many people. Alistair's eyes lit to Leliana, standing further away from the fire than the others. She was the one who had always been hopeful even when the rest of them felt nothing but defeat. Her eyes should be brimming with it—but they weren't.

Of all the people in the camp, the one person who should be the most positive of all had nothing but emptiness in her eyes. No, not emptiness. Despair. It made no sense. He placed the food he hadn't eaten on one of the logs they used for chairs and walked over to her. She watched his approach silently, the look in her eyes not changing even as he got closer. When he was near enough, he reached out and cupped her chin. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Can't you feel it?" she asked, her chin quivering on his fingers.

"Can't you? Everyone here, Leliana, they're filled with hope. It's a pestilence all over the camp, and it's wonderful."

"No," she whispered, and then moved his hand away from her face. After she'd done that, she reached down, removed the gauntlet from her left arm, and thrust the arm into the light of the nearby fire.

And then Alistair saw it.

A bite mark.

"It was a genlock," she said, "and I didn't even see him until it was over. It bit straight through my gauntlet when I lowered my bow to nock an arrow."

That's what her question had meant. Not if he could feel the hope, but if he could feel the taint. He grabbed her arm, feeling it over with his hands, wishing for the bite to go away, to disappear. But it didn't. Instead, he saw the mottled darkness of corruption spreading across her once flawless skin, growing right under his eyes. Instead, his newly found hope disappeared. He squeezed his eyes shut, reached out as a Grey Warden, and found the taint within the woman standing in front of him. When he opened his eyes, his vision was watery, and he could barely breathe. "It hasn't been that long," he said, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. "Marethari is near Redcliffe, she and Wynne can use their magic together. Or you... you could try to take the Joining and become a Grey Warden. We can do something about this." Even as he said it, he knew there were no darkspawn for miles. There was nowhere they could find the last component of the Joining potion soon enough. Wynne's magic couldn't keep the taint at bay. Marethari's could, but she was days away, and that would be days too late.

Leliana gently took her arm out of his hands. "It's okay."

"No, it is not. Not by any means."

"Alistair, I've known this could happen, ever since I first joined you at Lothering many months ago. I accepted the possibility, especially when I rejected the offer to become a Grey Warden. If the Maker wills it, then the Maker wills it."

How could her eyes be despairing and calm at the same time? "The Maker doesn't will this," he said. "There has to be something we can do." He ran his hand through his short hair and looked frantically at the fire, as if it would offer some answers.

Leliana took his hands in hers. "Don't make this harder than it already is."

"Harder than it already is? How could it possibly be any more difficult?"

"By you trying to will a miracle into existence that will not appear instead of accepting what must happen. Instead of letting us have what little time we have together in peace instead of war."

His mouth opened and shut for want of an argument, for a reassurance that wasn't empty. But her skin burned with fever where she touched him and the taint wormed its way through her body even as they spoke. Fear clutched at his lungs, pressing the air out of them, making it difficult to breathe. He shut his eyes again.

"Alistair," said his brother's voice behind him, "there might be a problem somewhere in camp. I can sense... oh, no."

"It's okay," Leliana reassured him, the same as she had tried to reassure Alistair.

"No it isn't," Malcolm told her, the same as Alistair had told her moments before. "There must be—"

"No, there aren't," Alistair said, opening his eyes again. "There aren't darkspawn for miles and we've burned all the bodies. Wynne doesn't know Marethari's magic. Marethari is days from here even at top speed and we don't have days. You can feel it as well as I do. We don't have days. We have hours. _She_ has hours." Another glance at Leliana's arm confirmed his words as true. Already, the corruption had covered her arm and now crept toward her shoulder. Fever began to shine in her eyes and sweat formed on her brow. The confident Leliana had gone and her legs started to collapse underneath her. Alistair caught her and gently lowered her to the ground.

Wynne appeared at his side and cast a healing spell on the bard, and her skin stopped burning as badly. It was still warm, overly so, but lacked the heat it had held before.

"There's really nothing we can do," Malcolm whispered, both a question and an answer.

Pain lanced through Leliana's face, even though Wynne's magic.

"No," Alistair protested, his fingers tracing the contours of her cheek. Yet even as he said it, he felt the taint advancing, ever advancing just like the Blight. Behind him he heard Líadan enter the camp from her visit with the Dalish, her immediate question about a possible ghoul or darkspawn, Zevran's hushed answer, Líadan's shocked reply. Morrigan whispering with Wynne about spells they could use, each of them negated in turn due to the speed of the spreading taint. Nothing, there was nothing.

Leliana winced again and her entire body went rigid with the pain. The grimace didn't go away when her muscles relaxed. He'd never see that hope again. Her eternal optimism and faith in the Maker.

"Help me," she said, so quietly that he barely heard it, a puff off air into a howling wind.

"Alistair." And his brother was there, at his side, pressing something into his hands. Something cold, sharp, balanced, and deadly. "Someone has to give her peace. She wants it to be you."

"Please." Leliana again.

"Where?" he asked.

Zevran pointed to where death would be instantaneous.

Alistair's hands moved to grip the dagger.

The others knelt by Leliana one by one, whispering their farewells.

Then it was just Alistair next to her, a dagger grasped in his trembling hands before he took a deep breath and steeled himself for what had to be done. He placed the tip of the dagger where Zevran had showed him. Then he leaned over her, to look at her one last time. She opened her eyes, the clear blue untouched by the taint. "I love you," she whispered to him.

"I love you," he whispered back, and then as he kissed her, he slid the dagger into her heart, and gave her peace.


	38. Chapter 38

"Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.

From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.

Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.

In my arms lies Eternity."

—_Canticle of Andraste 14:11_

**Chapter 38**

**Malcolm**

Within hours, the rest of the camp knew that one of the members of the Grey Wardens' party had died. The thirty-first casualty of the Battle of Honnleath, as the battle they fought would later be called. Hope in defeating the Blight and overturning Loghain's rule remained, but the joy had departed from the camp, replaced by the sorrow Alistair felt, the sorrow his brother and the rest of his companions felt. They wrapped her body tightly in a large, spare cloak. A small cart had its contents distributed through the other supply carts in the column, and her body was laid there for its trip to Redcliffe. Alistair walked silently beside it, speaking only when he needed to. He gave the needed messages, the needed orders. Malcolm had gone to speak with him more than once. His brother wasn't falling apart, but he was being stoic, something he'd not really seen in him before.

And Malcolm had no idea how to react.

It was a somber, yet victorious army that marched back into Redcliffe. Instead of disbanding and each contingent heading back to their respective places outside of the Redcliffe proper, they stayed in the village. Malcolm asked each commander why, and they'd told him their soldiers wanted to be there for the bard's funeral pyre. She had died serving with them and they felt it necessary to honor her. Alistair had gone and told Arl Eamon the news, while Malcolm went to the Chantry and notified the Revered Mother and made the arrangements for the pyre to be that night. People needed to get back to their respective camps, and even though the body was Leliana's, it was tainted, and needed to be burned. More than that, much more than that, she was their friend, and deserved a proper farewell.

After dusk, at the rise of the first stars of the night, the warriors of the Dalish and soldiers of Redcliffe, along with others present in the village of Redcliffe and its castle, gathered by Redcliffe's beach and harbor. Leliana's body had been placed carefully within a small boat, barely large enough to hold her form. A single rose lay on top of the white shroud that covered her body. Malcolm helped his brother slowly push the boat into the lake, his boots soaking up the water as they stepped into the chilly shallows. Then the lake took the boat into its watery arms, and it floated toward the middle of the harbor with the current.

"Here lies the abyss," Alistair said, his voice carrying to all gathered at the shore, "the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies Eternity." Then he stepped back, out of the water, and signaled the waiting archer on the ridge overlooking the beach. Malcolm also moved back, standing between Morrigan and Líadan.

The Dalish archer nocked his bow, and then another elf set it aflame. Then the archer fired a single, true shot into Leliana's boat, and it burst into flame. As it burned, another Dalish sang a slow, sad song in a remarkably clear singing voice.

"She's singing _In Uthenera_," Líadan whispered in awe. "Normally it's only for Dalish funerals." As the elf sang, Líadan translated for those around her:

"Elder your time has come

Now I am filled with sorrow

Weary eyes need resting

Heart has become grey and slow

In waking sleep is freedom

We sing, rejoice

We tell the tales

We laugh and cry

We love one more day."

Malcolm found it incredibly appropriate for remembering Leliana. After the Dalish finished, the Revered Mother said something along the lines of a short sermon, but he didn't think many people paid attention to her. What had mattered to them most was what Alistair had said, and the touching offering of the Dalish. The words from the man who would be their king who had loved the woman they now all mourned, and the songs from the people who had joined with the woman in battle. But Leliana had loved the Maker, Andraste, and Their Chantry, and so the Revered Mother was given her place.

And then the fire flared out, the boat rendered to ashes spread upon the lake's surface, dark specks on the bright reflections of the stars from the clear sky.

Those gathered dispersed and went back to their homes and their camps. The small group stayed behind, the Grey Wardens and their companions. Then they, too, took their leave as Alistair remained on the beach, staring out at the lake where the boat had been. Malcolm felt Morrigan's hand from when he'd taken it, though he couldn't remember doing so. She squeezed it and he looked over at her. She inclined her head toward Alistair and he nodded, understanding. Then he moved to her, kissed her, and then let go, striding towards his brother as Morrigan drifted up toward the castle.

"She told me once," Alistair said quietly as soon as Malcolm stood next to him, "that it comforted her to know that the stars would remained untouched by the Blight. That whatever happens down here, they will shine eternally, their light undimmed."

Malcolm remained silent.

"I honestly never thought that _her_ light would be dimmed by the Blight," Alistair finished.

"I don't think any of us did," Malcolm said.

"No, I didn't think you would." Alistair sighed. "But we must move on, right? We must press forward. Always we must press forward, as Duncan used to say." He'd tried to sound full of bravado, but instead, his voice crept ever closer to breaking.

"That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to mourn." Malcolm indicated toward where the soldiers and villagers and Dalish had all retreated. "And you do not mourn alone."

"You know, I once told her that... well, let me back up," said Alistair, and as he continued speaking, his tone got lighter with the warmth of remembrance. "See, back in Lothering, the first time we were there, I picked a rose because I was wondering to myself about how something so beautiful could exist in a place with so much despair and and ugliness. I endured teasing from Morrigan to get her to cast a preservation spell on it. A couple months later, I gave it to Leliana and told her that it reminded me of her, a rare and wonderful thing to find amidst all this darkness." A small, lopsided grin appeared on Alistair's face at the memory.

"And she fell for that? Really?" Malcolm said. "That must have been true love."

The grin twitched on Alistair's face, and then Malcolm noticed tears trying to fight their way out of his brother's eyes. When Alistair didn't reply, Malcolm put a hand on his brother's shoulder, and stood there with him and watched the stars in their vigil.

After a while, Malcolm gave Alistair's shoulder a squeeze, let go, and started up toward the castle. He found Arl Eamon standing at the edge of the beach as he turned, a question on his face. "Talk to him," Malcolm said quietly as he passed the older man. "Because our father can't."

Eamon nodded solemnly and walked towards Alistair.

Malcolm returned to the castle, feeling more worn out than he had after their weeks in the Deep Roads. They had tonight to mourn, and then tomorrow the pressures of the Blight and the civil war would come roaring back at them. Messengers had been sent to all the banns and arls to summon the Landsmeet in Denerim when they had passed through Redcliffe on their way to Honnleath. They were a week out from Denerim, so they would have to leave tomorrow or the day after by the latest in order to reach Denerim in time. They now had more than half the Bannorn on their side, and the numbers of their supporters grew every day. Even now he knew that the news of the secured dwarven alliance, along with the outcome of the Battle of Honnleath was flying across Ferelden, summoning more people to their banner. Malcolm sat heavily in one of the chairs in front of the large fireplace in the nearly empty main hall. A guard stood nervously by one of the doors, glancing occasionally in Malcolm's direction, as if he were royalty.

Oh, _right_. Malcolm nearly smacked himself in the forehead. More and more he and Alistair were becoming so, especially within Redcliffe and amongst the banns who had met them. More and more often they were were called by the title of prince. He sighed and stared into the fire, still not tired enough for sleep. He knew he should go change out of his armor, but he couldn't bring himself to get out of the chair. Before long, another weary figure drifted into the hall and settled nearly as heavily into one of the other chairs.

Bann Teagan cast troubled eyes on the flames. "He would have made her his queen, you know," he said to Malcolm.

"I know," he replied, and smiled despite the situation. "That would've tweaked Loghain's nose even if he'd been dead by the time Alistair did it. An Orlesian and a bard. But those traits aside... she would have made a good queen. Ferelden would have loved her."

"More importantly, Alistair loved her. Everyone could see it. And she loved him. So of course the damnable darkspawn had to take that bit of happiness away from him," Teagan said, the ire in his voice ringing clearly. "It makes me wonder why the Maker can't let that boy have just a bit of happiness. When he first joined the Grey Wardens, for the first time since he was a small boy, he was happy. He fit in. He'd found somewhere he'd belonged. And then Loghain's treachery took the Wardens away from him, and in the end, forced his birthright upon him. Alistair will be a good king, I see it, you see it, everyone sees it except Alistair. But being king is the last thing Alistair wants and I fear it will make him miserable. Yet he has no choice. Leliana could've been one bit of happiness that was his to take with him as he assumed the throne. But..."

"Not any longer," Malcolm finished, his own anger flaring briefly before fading. He was too tired now to stay angry. There'd be more time for fury later. Preferably when there would be darkspawn around to kill. And maybe Loghain. And Howe. Them, too.

"Is my brother down there with Alistair now?"

Malcolm nodded. "Yes. I told Eamon to talk to him."

"That's what he went down there for, I think. Eamon knows the story about what Maric had to do to a woman he loved who betrayed him. While the betrayal part wasn't there, the part about having to kill the woman you loved with your own blade part was there. It nearly broke Maric, I was told. I don't remember it. I was just a young boy hiding with family in the Free Marches while my father and elder siblings fought in the Rebellion."

"Ah, the blessings of being the youngest," Malcolm said. "Watching your father and older brother, and in your case, sister, going off to battle while you stay back at home and wonder when you'll do anything useful. But, at least it meant you weren't going to inherit the family title. I always took solace in that."

Teagan smiled a little. "As did I. Then they went and made me Bann of Rainesfere. And if Eamon and Isolde have no other children, I'm stuck with the Arling of Redcliffe, as well."

"I'm sorry."

The bann looked away from the fire and at Malcolm. "Yes, you would understand that, wouldn't you? Most other people can't fathom why I wouldn't want to be arl, why I'd rather leave it to my brother to deal with and _keep_."

At hearing Teagan's words, Malcolm felt slightly guilty for the position Teagan would soon be in regarding the Arling of Redcliffe.

A guard burst into the main hall. "My lords!" he practically shouted at Malcolm and Teagan.

"Um, yes?" Malcolm asked.

Teagan got to his feet. "Is there a problem?"

"A scouting party has just returned from the Korcari Wilds. They're asking for you and Prince Malcolm to come with me immediately."

Malcolm stood up, already thoroughly tired of the honorific, and started following the young guard even as he questioned him. "What's this about?"

"I don't know. They only told me to come get you. They should be in the courtyard by now."

"They?" Malcolm exchanged looks with Teagan and all the bann had for him was a shrug. The two men followed the harried guard through the main doors of the keep and into Redcliffe Castle's courtyard. Four Dalish hunters and two Redcliffe scouts stood at the base of the stairs with another man Malcolm thought he recognized in the midst of them. The medium brown hair was longer than he remembered, and the goatee desperately needed a trim. "Fergus?"

The man's head snapped around at the name and looked straight at Malcolm. He recognized him immediately and a wry smile lit his face. "When I heard my little brother was not only a Grey Warden, but apparently also a prince rallying all sorts of soldiers to his banner, I was surprised, to put it mildly." His voice hadn't changed from the last time he'd seen him at Highever, when he'd teased their mother and exasperated his wife, light and almost always sounding slightly amused.

Though his long-lost brother stood a mere fifteen feet away, finally proving to be alive and well, Malcolm found that he couldn't take a single step toward him. "You're alive. Everyone thought you were dead."

Ignoring his younger brother's reticence, Fergus ran up the steps, taking two at a time, and wrapped Malcolm in a bear hug. "I never made it to the battle at Ostagar," he explained, once he let his brother go and stepped back. "We were still scouting in the Wilds when we were attacked by a party of darkspawn. Most of my men were killed. I woke up two weeks later in a Chasind hut, wounded and feverish. By the time I was able to sneak out of the Wilds, your scouting parties were already looking for signs of the darkspawn. They were more than surprised to find me, alive and untainted."

Malcolm gave him a pained look, unable to speak because he knew he should tell Fergus right away about Oren and Oriana. But the words wouldn't leave his mouth.

Fergus noticed, and the joy at seeing his younger brother alive became replaced with sharp grief over losing his wife and son. "I already know what happened. The Redcliffe soldiers explained it to me on the way here, when I told them I wanted to get word to Highever." He gave Malcolm an attempt at a reassuring smile. "Mother and Father went down fighting. And it wasn't in vain... you got away and now you and Alistair are on the way to saving the entire kingdom. Kingdom first, and then Howe gets his. He's is a greedy, treacherous bastard, and I intend to take him down once the Blight is over."

"I'll gladly help you do that," Malcolm replied, and then he frowned. "How much did the soldiers tell you?"

Fergus smiled, shoving away his pain in favor of the positive things left to him. "Everything. Did you know that I already knew who your natural parents were? Mother and Father entrusted me with that secret long ago. They had to after Father took a trip here to Redcliffe with me when I was younger. I had thought we'd left you back at the castle with Mother, and I'm running around the estate, up to no good if I remember correctly, and I see this boy I thought was my little brother from a distance. I got closer, and I was thinking to myself that it still looked like you. I shouted your name, but he looked at me in alarm and scampered away before I could find out who he was. I confronted Father about it, and once we got back to Highever, he and Mother told me the truth."

"Oh, sure, everyone else knew but me."

Fergus threw a friendly arm around his shoulders. "Don't be like that. It was for your own good."

Across the courtyard, Malcolm saw Alistair standing just under the raised portcullis. Jealousy flitted briefly across Alistair's face, but was quickly replaced with a warm smile. A smile that, even across the yard, Malcolm could see touched his eyes. "Alistair!" he shouted.

"And here would be the man who will truly be suffering for his birthright," Fergus said as Alistair walked up the stairs. Arl Eamon was only a few paces behind him.

"Tell me about it," Alistair said, personable grin on his face. Not as wide or jocular as Alistair's normal grin, but it was an attempt. Malcolm could see the grief lurking in the back of his brother's eyes, but while he did mourn, it appeared he was able to feel other emotions. "I keep trying to convince Malcolm to take the throne once we get it out of Loghain's hands, but he always tells me no."

"I tried the same with him about Highever and him becoming Father's heir instead of me. He told me to go soak my head in a much less polite way," Fergus replied, and then turned to Eamon. "I suspect Arl Howe has declared himself to be Teyrn Howe of Highever?"

Eamon's brows drew together in anger. "Yes, he has. That, and many other things, shall be rectified at this upcoming Landsmeet." He motioned toward the doors. "Let's continue this inside, shall we?"

The rest of the men followed the arl back inside to the main hall to find seats in front of the roaring fire, a welcome warmth after the chill outside. "So it's true, then," Fergus said, collapsing into the chair nearest the fireplace. "You've called a Landsmeet?"

Eamon nodded. "Yes. We should be departing for Denerim either tomorrow or the day after—"

"Tomorrow," Alistair said in a voice firm and clear. "After Honnleath, I've no intention of letting Loghain continue to waste Ferelden's resources in this civil war. Fergus's appearance gives us all the more leverage against him, as well. For now, we have the element of surprise with the news. I'm presuming since it was our men who found you, Fergus, that Loghain has no idea you've been recovered. And by extension, I'm assuming Arl Howe has no idea, either. The revelation that there's a Cousland by blood who is also still alive will throw them and entirely invalidate any claim Howe might have made to the teyrnir of Highever." He looked at Fergus from where he paced. "I hope you are all right to travel, because we're going to need you."

"I'm willing to do anything that will take down Howe and Loghain after what they've done," Fergus said, a flare of anger lacing his tone that Malcolm had never before heard in him.

"Even still, we'll have Wynne take a look at you before we set out," Alistair replied, and signaled for one of the guards to fetch the healer. "You'll have to be outfitted as well."

"How many troops do you plan on bringing with you to Denerim?" Eamon asked.

"I've my own ideas, but..." Alistair looked at his brother. "What do you think?"

Malcolm leaned against a nearby wall as he considered his answer. They had to make a show of force, but they didn't want it to look like they were marching on Denerim. That would alarm too many people and possibly precipitate a battle. With sightings of the darkspawn continuing in the south, and with what they'd seen in the Deep Roads, the bulk of their forces needed to remain in the Redcliffe area. Signs pointed toward the horde and the archdemon emerging somewhere around Redcliffe and Malcolm had no intention of letting them be caught with their pants down. He sighed. "I'm not sure. We can't risk too many for two reasons—the continuing threat of the horde and the possibility that too many soldiers will cause Loghain or Howe to interpret our approach on Denerim as a march on the throne."

"Which is pretty much is," Fergus said.

"Right," said Malcolm, "but our first attempt will be politically with the Landsmeet and not by force. As much as we'd like to wrest the throne from Loghain's cold, dead hands, we can't waste the lives to do it, not with the Blight. Our very reason for taking the throne in the first place is because Loghain isn't taking the Blight seriously and we are."

"And continuation of the Theirin bloodline on Ferelden's throne," Eamon added.

Alistair cast the arl a knowing look. "Eamon, you know very well that neither Malcolm nor I would even be seeking the throne if not for the Blight. Neither one of us wants to rule Ferelden. It's simply become a duty in ending the Blight, bloodline aside."

Eamon's eyes darkened with anger, fury pulling the sides of the arl's mouth downward with a certain determination. "You constantly underestimate the importance the Theirin bloodline has to the Fereldan people," he said, rounding on Alistair. "Ferelden was first united by Calenhad, the Silver Knight. For four hundred years, his descendants have ruled Ferelden. That was the heritage we preserved from the Orlesians, and it is the heritage Fereldans will fight for as long as one of Calenhad's descendants still lives. Without that to unite us, we would scatter back into warring teyrnirs. We're doing so even now."

"You're exaggerating. It hasn't gone that far," Alistair said.

Eamon crossed his arms, his countenance growing more dark. Malcolm suddenly wished he was a lot smaller than he was. Or perhaps invisible. The arl asked, "Has it? Just what do you think the Bannorn is doing right now? Holding pillow fights on horseback?"

Malcolm heard a distinct strangled noise come from Teagan and a similar one from Fergus as they sought to keep themselves from laughing. Alistair, on his part, regarded Eamon with a great deal of shock. Eamon turned to Malcolm. "Tell me, what did you see in the soldiers at the camp after the Battle of Honnleath?"

At the sudden attention turned onto him, Malcolm nearly jumped. He did, however, straighten from his slouch against the wall. "Me?"

"Yes, you. I know you're observant and don't pretend that you're not. You tend to see even more than Alistair because you know what to look for. Bryce raised both you and Fergus well."

Malcolm glanced over at Alistair, who still stared at Eamon, and then back to the arl. "Hope. The soldiers, the Dalish, everyone in the camp, even though we'd lost thirty people in the battle, and still couldn't save the town... they were hopeful. They talked about Alistair at their fires, how he reminded them not of Cailan, but of Maric. How they believed he would lead them to victory over the darkspawn and the Blight."

"They mentioned you, too, you know," Alistair said, coming out of his stupor. "I know you're being humble and all that, but you figure just as much into this as I do." He sighed and looked at Eamon. "I understand what you're saying. The Fereldans we've gathered, by and large, fight with us because we're Maric's sons and not because we're Grey Wardens. That the reason they're so inspired to do so is because they believe in Calenhad's descendants."

"That's where it started," said Eamon, the anger dissipating from his voice, though it became no less firm. "It's changed since then. They started following you because you were Maric's sons. Now they follow you because they believe you can do it. That you can take back the throne, rule Ferelden properly, and save Ferelden and her people from the Blight itself. They see you as the rightful heir, not just because you share the same blood, Alistair, but because you share the same traits and characteristics that those before you carried. You remind them of Calenhad, and more recently, the Rebel Queen and Maric. They believe in your heritage and you. It's time you took that part seriously." Then he shifted his determined gaze to Malcolm. "Both of you."

No one said anything for a moment. The fire crackled merrily away, footsteps sounded in the corridors beyond the main hall as people went about their business. Finally, Malcolm slid a glance at Alistair and said, "What he just said is kind of what Maric told us before. Except Maric said it way better."

"You have a point," Alistair replied.

Eamon looked between the two of them as if they'd suggested raising high dragons as pets. "What?"

Alistair shot a look at his brother informing him that since he brought it up, he could explain. Malcolm rolled his eyes and turned to the arl, ignoring the unabashed looks of incredulity from Fergus and Teagan. "When we were getting the Sacred Ashes—"

"Of Andraste? _Those_ Sacred Ashes?" Fergus interrupted.

Malcolm waved him off. "Yes. But there's a lot more more mythical that aren't so mythical anymore stories I have for you later, but right now I have to explain this bit to Eamon before he has me committed to the Chantry for mental instability." He turned his eyes back to Eamon. "Anyway. We had to go through this strange gauntlet of sorts that poked and prodded at our moral character, or something like that. One of the parts had the spirits of people from our past confronting us about our hidden doubts with ourselves. King Maric was one of those we saw. And he pretty much told us what you just said, except it was more pointed. And a bit more patient. Then again, he hadn't had to put up with our exasperating behavior for months on end, so he had that advantage over you."

"You saw Maric?"

"Let me tell you, he looked remarkably good for a dead man," Alistair said. "And I think I understand both points, his and yours, Eamon. At any rate, it's getting late and we've plenty of time to continue this particular argument further while we're on the road. We'll take a vanguard of fifty mounted Redcliffe soldiers with us, and leave the rest behind to remain vigilant against the Blight, since, as we've said, someone has to take the darkspawn seriously, and it certainly isn't Loghain."

A side door cracked open and Wynne walked through, Gunnar at her side. As soon as the mabari caught sight of Fergus, the large dog leapt over to the man, placing his massive paws on the man's leg and shoving his face into Fergus's in slobbery greeting.

"I told you he likes you," Malcolm said.

"Call your dog off!" Fergus cried, trying futilely to push the dog away from him.

Malcolm laughed and Gunnar backed down without having to be told.

"I take it this is the man I'm supposed to check on?" Wynne asked Alistair.

"Yes, please?" came Alistair's reply, almost petulant as he'd not exactly asked Wynne, but summoned her instead.

"He's my brother Fergus," Malcolm said. "Fergus, this is Senior Enchanter Wynne from the Circle of Magi. She's been traveling with us for quite a while, offering advice, healing our oft-occurring wounds, and scolding us when we act like little boys."

"Which is more often than it should be," Wynne said, smiling at Fergus in greeting. Then she placed her hand on his forearm, magic glowing softly from her fingers.

"Our mother had it just as bad, I imagine," Fergus said, returning the smile. "One time, we kept right on fighting until Mother threw a bucket of water over us."

Teagan laughed as he rose from his chair. "I recall a similar incident between myself and Eamon, once."

"Yes, well, one such incident between myself and Malcolm ended up with both of us being put in a petrification spell," Alistair said.

Fergus raised a questioning brow at Wynne as the mage withdrew her hand. "Oh, that wasn't my handiwork," she said, a chuckle forming in her throat. "That was our other mage, Morrigan."

Malcolm sighed. "She was rather irritated."

"Furious, more like," Alistair corrected him.

"A woman you would not want on your bad side, that much is true," came Zevran's voice from the doorway. "Fergus, it is good to see you alive and well, my friend."

"Zevran!" Fergus jumped out of his chair and bounded over to the elf, throwing his arms around him as he'd done to Malcolm earlier. After he took a step back, he asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Loghain sent him to kill us," Malcolm said. "Obviously he didn't know about our family's little connection to the Antivan Crows."

Zevran made as if he were brushing off his black leathers before he looked Fergus directly in the eye. "I promise you, the deeds done to your wife and son will be avenged, my friend."

The pain of loss cut through Fergus's eyes. "Thank you. Even if Howe doesn't die by one of our hands, he must see justice done at the hands of the Crown. I think an assassin's blade or poison is too good for him. The last thing he deserves is a private death. The Landsmeet, the people of Ferelden, need to know what he did. In the chaos caused by the Blight, he murdered a castle full of people in order to advance himself. It wasn't just my family that suffered that night—many good Highever families either died in entirety or lost one or more of their loved ones that night."

"Justice will be done, you have my word of that," Alistair said. "Rendon Howe is next on the list right after Loghain for executions that must take place in the near future."

"You would truly execute Loghain were you to win the Landsmeet?" Eamon asked, stopping on his way to the door.

"Yes. He is a traitor. His actions at Ostagar and after have negated anything he did for Ferelden before. He killed Cailan. He killed Duncan. Beyond that, he has sought to kill me and Malcolm. Even off the throne, he is a threat to the throne as long as he is alive. Besides, were the situation reversed, he would have Malcolm and me executed without a second thought."

"He's right," Malcolm said.

Eamon gave them a reluctant nod. "Yes, he is." He sighed wearily. "I must retire. The hour is getting late and we have a journey to make tomorrow. Good night." The arl left the room. Teagan and Wynne excused themselves shortly after.

Fergus studied Zevran. "I understand that you were sent to kill Malcolm and Alistair and apparently failed—"

"I assure you, had I wanted to, I could have," Zevran said in his defense, the pride he had in his skills unwilling to let him to remain silent.

Alistair sat down in one of the recently vacated chairs. "You really don't have to keep pointing that out, you know. In fact, it would probably be in your best interest not to again. Someone might not remember that you're our friend and a fellow Grey Warden and might take it upon themselves to remove the danger you pose to us. Just a thought."

"You're a Grey Warden?" Fergus asked. "You, Zevran?"

The elf shrugged. "My life with the Crows was forfeit once I agreed to the contract on Malcolm and Alistair and failed to carry it out. I knew it the moment I accepted the deal. I found myself in need of a purpose and the Grey Wardens have provided that, as well as a safe haven from the Crows. Assassinating members of the Grey Warden order is considered impolitic, even in Antiva. Thus, Crows who join the Grey Wardens are not pursued. It is not so bad. There's wine, women, song, royal intrigue, and a considerable amount of treasure we constantly stumble into on our adventures."

"Oriana would have been proud," Fergus told the Zevran. "I know I am." He looked at Malcolm. "And of you, too, little brother."

Malcolm rolled his eyes and blushed.

Alistair rose from his chair. "I'll leave you to your family reunion, then," he said awkwardly, and made for the door.

Fergus's hand reached out as Alistair brushed by and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Not so fast. You're as bad as Malcolm. Alistair, you're just as much family to me as he is. Any brother of his is a brother of mine, blood or no. And you don't get a choice about it, either."

As Alistair gaped at Fergus, Malcolm said, "See what I grew up with? Go ahead, argue with him over it. Watch out for a right cross when you do."

"Fine, I won't argue. I suppose I can use all the family I can get," Alistair said with a resigned sigh. "Even so, we all still need to get some sleep. I'm not kidding about leaving tomorrow. I'm getting really anxious about how fast the darkspawn are moving now, and how slowly Loghain is moving against them. So if it's safe, I will say good night to you all."

They bid Alistair good night, and then Malcolm motioned for Fergus and Zevran to follow him. He brought them to the castle's armory and while his brother waited outside, Malcolm went in and removed the Cousland sword and Highever shield from their storage racks. When he presented them to Fergus, tears shined in his brother's eyes, mirroring his own.


	39. Chapter 39

"Blessed are they who stand before

The corrupt and wicked and do not falter.

Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just."

—_Canticle of Benedictions 4:10_

**Chapter 39**

**Alistair**

The gates of Denerim rose in the distance, banners with the double rampant mabari of Ferelden's heraldry waving in the wind atop its towers. The retinue slowed their horses as Alistair slowed his own. Beside him, his brother cast him a curious look. "Having second thoughts?"

"No," Alistair replied. "Well, maybe a few. You do realize that Loghain could just meet us at the gates with a personal army and have us executed right there?"

"We already had outriders check for an ambush. Zevran even went with them and they saw no such ambush set up," Malcolm reminded him.

He narrowed his eyes at the gates as they continued to draw closer. "It could be an elaborate trap. Zevran could be in on it."

"I'm sitting right here, you know," Zevran said. "And I would never use such a trap that you could figure out, my dear Alistair."

Alistair scowled at the Antivan. "Very funny."

"I never said it was a joke. But," he quickly said at Alistair's dark look, "if you wish, I can go check again."

He waved him off. "No, no. Let's just go." Then he nudged his horse back into a trot and maintained course for Denerim. At Alistair's insistence, Arl Eamon rode at the head of the vanguard for now, as they didn't want their arrival in the city to look like they were marching on it, even if they only had fifty men with them, in addition to the other Grey Wardens and their companions. Fergus had ridden with them most of the time, but for the ride into Denerim itself, he rode wearing Redcliffe livery and amongst the Redcliffe soldiers. They had no intention of Loghain or Howe finding out that Fergus lived until they revealed it at the Landsmeet.

The week on the road had been good and had helped him keep his mind off Leliana. He knew she would have wanted him to continue on, to take back the throne and end the Blight with the help of his brother. And so he did, for her and for so many other reasons. But that hadn't meant he stopped missing her. It pained him, at times, to see his brother with Morrigan, that he still had the woman he loved in his life. He stopped those thoughts and emotions as soon as he had them, though—love, when you saw it, was meant to be rejoiced, even if it wasn't your own. Leliana had told him that, and repeated it whenever he expressed doubts over his brother's relationship with the witch. He'd moved beyond the pain enough to join in with Fergus in teasing Malcolm in the past few days, as well, and it had felt good to laugh.

"Alistair," Malcolm said.

He shook himself out of his reverie. "What?"

"I think you might have been right."

"Wait, what? What do you mean?"

Malcolm pointed toward the rapidly approaching gates as their party slowed to a walk. Several guards waited there, far more than the standard number of guards the gate usually had. In the middle, three armored figures—one in heavy plate, one in heavy chainmail, and one in leathers—stood prominently below the lowered portcullis. Alistair recognized the first individual immediately, as the heavy plate of the Hero of River Dane was instantly recognizable. Beside him was of course Ser Cauthrien, Loghain's second rarely a step or two from his side. And the third...

"I should run that snake down right here," Malcolm hissed.

Zevran reached and placed a hand on Malcolm's shoulder. "All in good time, my friend. Besides, Fergus would be very put out to be left out of the fun, no?"

"He'd also probably beat the snot out of you if you killed Howe without him being present," Alistair pointed out.

Malcolm sighed, and his body relaxed slightly. "I hate you both." He studied the sight ahead of them further. "However, this could still be trouble."

"That it could," Eamon called back from ahead of them.

"Zevran," said Alistair, "you and the others fall back to the Redcliffe soldiers and have them halt here. Stay with them. If we're safely let into the city then order them to follow us and meet us at the arl's estate. If anything else happens, send a messenger to Redcliffe, and then start planning to spring us from Fort Drakon."

"Or rescue us from the Fade, should Loghain prove to act more swiftly than even we think he might," Malcolm said.

Alistair glared at him. "I was trying to be optimistic."

"I did my best to sound as positive as I could," Malcolm replied. "I mean, I could have said, 'when you see our heads rolling about on the ground because Loghain has cut them off, feel free to try and use a necromancer—"

"Both of you, shut up right now and dismount. We need to go speak with Loghain," Eamon said, interrupting the rapidly building argument.

Malcolm quickly leapt off his horse. "I think that's the first time he's told us to shut up."

"And don't you start thinking it will be the last, either, young man," Eamon said. "Hurry up."

Alistair slid off his horse and joined the other two men. Together, they approached Loghain, Cauthrien, and Howe in measured steps. Loghain regarded them with cold eyes set in a haggard face, the past months having taken a toll on him worse than all the previous years had combined. The area in front of the city gates had fallen eerily silent in preparation for the confrontation that had been brewing for nearly a year. Few sounds dared tread in the quiet: the snapping of the banners above, the chuffing of the many horses, armor clinking where a soldier shifted their weight.

Eamon put on a front of innocence. "Loghain," he started. "This is... an honor, that the regent would find time to greet me personally."

Alistair resisted raising an eyebrow at the gall of Eamon's statement. An honor, indeed. It would be _his_ honor to introduce Loghain to the cold metal of his sword.

Loghain scowled at Eamon. "How can I not welcome a man so important in Ferelden who can call everyone away from their estates while a Blight claws at our land."

Finally, he admitted there was a Blight. But Alistair could see that Loghain used the Blight as a dig at Eamon and the rest of them and that even now, the regent still didn't believe the true treat that faced them. "The Blight is why I'm here," said Eamon, giving Loghain a scowl of his own. "With Cailan dead, Ferelden must have a king to lead it against the darkspawn."

Loghain crossed his arms and his scowl grew deeper. Alistair wondered if the man's face would freeze like that. "Ferelden has a strong leader. Its queen. And I lead her armies."

"Considering Ostagar, perhaps we need a better general," Malcolm said from his spot beside his brother.

Alistair heard Eamon curse under his breath, while Alistair himself held in a laugh. Malcolm had no less said what everyone else had been thinking, and at the same time, reminded them that he was the youngest one here in all of this plotting, and at times, had the least control of his tact. He wondered if this was the Malcolm that Duncan had dealt with when Malcolm had met Cailan for the first time. Judging by the look on Eamon's face, the man's eyes twitching like he wanted to level a solid glare at Malcolm, it certainly was.

Loghain gazed imperiously at Malcolm. "Ah, the younger would-be bastard prince and ignominious Grey Warden conscript. I thought we might meet again. You have my sympathies on what happened to your order. It is unfortunate that they chose to turn on Ferelden."

Malcolm folded his arms across his chest, but not before Alistair noticed that his brother's hand had briefly drifted toward the hilt of his sword.

Alistair was as surprised as any of them when he, instead of his brother, forcefully said, "Our order doesn't accept the sympathies of deserters and regicides."

Loghain took a threatening step toward Alistair. Behind him, Alistair heard some of the Redcliffe soldiers shake blades loose in scabbards, and out of the corner of his eye, Malcolm dropped his arms to his sides, ready to draw his sword at a moment's notice. "You should curb your tongue," Loghain snapped at the younger man. "This is my city, and no safe place to speak treason." He looked away from Alistair and to Malcolm and finally to Eamon. "For anyone. There is talk that your illness left you feeble, Eamon. Some worry that you may no longer be fit to advise Ferelden."

Eamon scoffed. "Illness? Why not call your poison by its true name? Not everyone at the Landsmeet will cast aside their loyalties as easily as you and these..." Eamon narrowed his eyes and flicked them toward Cauthrien and Howe. "...sycophants."

With a motion toward Howe with his right hand, Loghain said, "How long you've been gone from court, Eamon. Don't you recognize Rendon Howe, Arl of Amaranthine and Teyrn of Highever?"

The man in question took a small step forward, undulating like a snake. Malcolm had certainly called that one, Alistair thought. "And current Arl of Denerim, after Urien's unfortunate fate at Ostagar." A sick smile twisted Howe's mouth. "Truly, it is an embarrassment of riches."

"Enjoy your moment," Malcolm said, his fingers flexing in want to make a fist and possibly use it on Howe. "It will end soon enough."

The knight at Loghain's side noticed and started toward Malcolm. "You are either very bold or very stupid to threatened the teyrn before witnesses," she said. He threatening steps caused more Redcliffe swords to loosen behind Alistair and Malcolm. Some Redcliffe blades came partway out of their scabbards, and Loghain's guards loosened their blades in turn.

Loghain held up his hand. "Enough, Cauthrien, this is not the time or place." The knight stepped back again, but didn't let up in her glare at Malcolm. Blades on both sides dropped back into scabbards. Loghain returned his gaze to the arl. "I had hoped to talk you down from this rash course, Eamon. Our people are frightened. Our king is dead. Our land is under siege. We must be united now, if we are to endure this crisis. Your own sister, Queen Rowan, fought tirelessly to see Ferelden restored. Would you see her work destroyed? You divide our nation and weaken our efforts agains the Blight with your selfish ambitions to the throne."

"If you truly want to save this land," Alistair said, before Eamon could get a word in, "then stand with us." Not that he'd trust this tried and true general to do anything other than die by his blade, but he had to make a philosophical point. He wasn't the one dividing Ferelden. Loghain was.

"I should put my faith in untried, foreign hands?" Loghain asked, looking at Alistair. "Do you think I'm blind? Cailan depended on the Grey Wardens' prowess against the darkspawn and look how that ended. Let us speak of reality rather than tall tales. Stories will not save us, but as you and Malcolm are but boys, you wouldn't know that, now would you?"

His temper flared in his chest, working to get the best of him. Alistair controlled it, forced it down, knowing that an outburst was exactly what Loghain was trying to provoke. And he'd be damned if he'd give him the satisfaction of getting one.

Taking advantage of Alistair's self-imposed silence, Eamon said, "I cannot forgive what you've done, Loghain. Perhaps the Maker can, but not I. Our people deserve a king of the Theirin bloodline. Alistair will be the one to lead us to victory in this Blight."

Alistair made sure to keep his sarcastic remark about no pressure to himself. He wouldn't show any fear or self-deprecating humor to Loghain.

Loghain cast a cold look at Alistair, one that sought to freeze his soul with fear. But Alistair wasn't afraid and he glared straight back at the teyrn. "The Emperor of Orlais thought I could not bring him down," Loghain practically shouted. "Expect no more mercy than I showed him. There is nothing I would not do for my homeland." Then he spun around, signaled for the portcullis to be raised, and stalked back into the city. Howe and Cauthrien followed at his heels, the extra guards outside the gates not far behind. Once the entire group had gone, Eamon turned to face Malcolm and Alistair.

And, just as Alistair had suspected, the first thing Eamon did was level a scathing glare at Malcolm. "Just what were you thinking with that comment?"

Malcolm blinked and acted bewildered. "The one about him being a poor strategist or the one about Rendon Howe's impending doom?"

Eamon ran a hand over his face. "Maker's mercy! _Nevermind_." Then he turned to Alistair, clearly expecting more maturity from the elder brother, and said, "I honestly didn't expect Loghain to show himself quite so soon."

"You mean you didn't expect him to meet us at the city gates to say hello for old times' sake?" Alistair asked.

Eamon narrowed his eyes at him. "Alistair, it is already proving to be a trying day. I do not need you to be acting as badly as your brother."

Resisting a grin, Alistair inclined his head in apology. "I'm sorry, Eamon. You did know Loghain a long time, though, didn't you?"

"My sister married King Maric while he was in exile. At that time, he and Loghain were inseparable. The wild prince who'd never seen the inside of a castle and the farmer's son. When Loghain joined Maric's rebels he was just a rawboned boy. But he got on one knee to swear that he would see Ferelden free, or die trying."

"It sounds like you admire him," Malcolm said, the surprise evident in his voice.

"He made us a free people once more," Eamon replied, some of the irritation at the younger man leaving his face. "You can't know what it was like to grow up as a vassal in your own land while poncy little Orlesians mince around in their silks. I would never have believed he would do anything but what was best for Ferelden."

Malcolm scoffed. "Aligning himself with Arl Howe doesn't seem like a very good choice for Ferelden."

"I admit, Rendon Howe has never been my favorite man to deal with," Eamon said in agreement. "He can be charismatic enough, I suppose but... he always seemed the kind of main who enjoyed kicking stray dogs. As you do, I would not have thought Loghain would trust him. It seems Loghain is no longer the man any of us knew, or thought we knew. Come. We need to get into the city and to my estate. We've much to plan. And I'm not sure about the two of you, but I could certainly deal with a bath, a change of clothing, and some hot food." He walked over to his horse and remounted. Alistair and Malcolm followed suit and their vanguard entered the city without further resistance.

Once inside Arl Eamon's Denerim estate, he had servants show them their rooms, instructing them to meet him in the dining hall for supper that evening. They had three days until the actual Landsmeet began, and they had much work to do in finding out the what the true feelings of the other nobles were. They spent the last hours of the afternoon making themselves presentable after a week on the road, sending messengers and spies out into the various parts of the city, and assiduously avoiding Isolde. Unwilling to leave her behind to further ruin the Arling of Redcliffe, Alistair had suggested leaving Eamon's seneschal in charge in favor of bringing Isolde along under the guise of her listening to the wives of the nobility. Though it pained him to have her along, and to have to listen to her speak day in and day out because he couldn't deny her access to her husband, it was better than allowing her unfettered access to the powers of Redcliffe without any supervision.

As Alistair headed to his brother's room to pick him—and most likely Morrigan since she would probably be speaking with him, well, he hoped only speaking—up for the walk to the dining room, he heard Morrigan say in a very annoyed tone, "If one more servant asks if I would like a change of clothes, I will set the house on fire."

He snorted with laughter, which made the door swiftly open and the witch appear in the doorway, a murderous glare on her lovely face, looking for the eavesdropper. "Oh," she said, "'tis you. Come in, if you must."

"I was simply stopping by to pick you two up for supper," he replied.

Morrigan arched an eyebrow. "Both of us?"

He gave her a small smile. "Let's just say I was going to pick up Malcolm and I assumed you'd be here."

She nodded in acknowledgement of his friendly gesture, opened the door wider, and stepped into the hallway. "You know, Alistair, I have noticed that you've gotten much more... tolerant of me as of late. I had assumed you would leap at the chance to take the same tack as Eamon, and yet you have not. I have to wonder as to why."

"Why?" He shrugged, and then regarded her seriously. "Do you want the long answer or short answer?"

The witch pursed her lips. "Short."

"You've been good for him. And he's been good for you."

Her other eyebrow raised.

He grinned. "More than that and it becomes the long answer."

Malcolm's head poked out the door, followed by the rest of his tall body as he joined them in the corridor. "What are you two jabbering about?"

"Your brother was entertaining me with a story of great detail and understanding," Morrigan told him.

"Did it have griffons in it?"

Morrigan smacked him on the arm and it only served to make Malcolm laugh, followed by Alistair.

The three of them met the others in the large dining hall, which Alistair noted they had changed since the last time he'd been here years ago. The servants in this estate hadn't known about Malcolm's tenuous grasp on his temper in regards to Isolde and unfortunately assigned him a seat directly across from her. Dinner was spent warily for those in the know, especially for Alistair, who sat directly next to his brother. Malcolm spent the entire dinner glaring at Isolde, looking as if he wished he could light her aflame with just his eyes, while Alistair spent the entire dinner wondering if he'd have to stop his brother from killing the arlessa.

It wasn't as if the woman didn't keep from throwing digs Malcolm's way, either, which didn't help matters any. It was reprehensible behavior on Isolde's part, and Alistair really couldn't understand it. Most of the jabs were in regards to Morrigan, though Isolde didn't say it outright. As Eamon continued to not stop his wife's behavior, Alistair started wondering if Eamon approved of it as another tactic to try and separate Malcolm from the witch. Either that or he was so caught up in his conversation with Wynne about the Circle that he didn't notice. Alistair had noted that the servants had seated Morrigan at the far end of the table from the rest of them, and nowhere near Malcolm. It could be Eamon's doing, or he supposed that it had to do with the fact that Morrigan seemed very much an uncivilized witch of the wilds at first glance, especially what with the robes. She was far enough away and in enough of a conversation with Zevran and Líadan that she heard none of the things Isolde said. Which he figured was a good thing in the end, as it would mean less people and things would be on fire.

"Tell me, husband," Isolde said to Eamon, "would the late Teyrn and Teyrna of Highever approve of their younger son being involved with a witch?"

Malcolm dropped his fork on his plate with an audible clink, rose from his chair, and walked out of the dining hall without a single word.

The chatter along the table came to a halt as eyes followed Malcolm's departure. Alistair dragged his own gaze away from the empty doorway and toward Isolde and Eamon. "We need to talk," he told them. "Now." Then he got up and walked out just as Malcolm had. After a few moments, Eamon and Isolde also exited the room, followed closely by Teagan. Alistair angrily directed them towards Eamon's study. As he walked behind them, he found himself grateful that Fergus had taken dinner earlier with the soldiers, continuing in his guise of being one of the many Redcliffe soldiers at the estate, and not the missing and presumed dead heir to Highever. He had no idea what Fergus might have done to Isolde.

Once they were inside the study, Alistair nearly slammed the door shut behind them. He rounded on Isolde. "What was that?"

She blinked prettily at him. "What was what?"

He rolled his eyes at her antics and turned to Eamon. "Fine. You tell me, then, because you let that go on for so long. What was that back there? Is this some new part of your plan to separate Malcolm from Morrigan?"

"What are you talking about? All I noticed was Malcolm walking out of the dinner early," Eamon replied, seemingly truly confused.

Perhaps he really had been caught up in his conversation with Wynne about Connor's future. Alistair was willing to grant him that. But he wasn't going to let this issue go, not any longer. "Your wife," he pointed to Isolde, "spent that entire dinner antagonizing Malcolm."

Isolde's hand went to her chest. "I did no such—"

"Oh, yes you did," Teagan said, interrupting her. "And I spent that entire time waiting for you to put a stop to it, brother," he directed at Eamon.

"I truly did not notice," said Eamon, the regret showing plainly in his eyes. "I am sorry." Then he turned to his wife. "What do you have against that boy? What makes you continue to needle him so? Has he not suffered enough?"

"He shamed me!" she shouted suddenly, tears springing to her eyes. "The things he has said to me, about me, to my face, and to others—"

"You shame yourself," Eamon said quietly, his words surprising everyone in the room.

"I... what?" Outrage sparked in Isolde's eyes that her husband would disagree with her, quickly drying the tears.

"Your actions, both here and back at Redcliffe. What shames you isn't anything the boy has said to you or anyone else about you. What shames you is your conduct both while I was ill and afterward." Eamon stopped speaking with Isolde and briefly turned to Alistair and Teagan. "Please, leave us. I will find you momentarily."

Eyebrows raised, both men left the room and lounged against the wall outside. They heard snippets of arguments and raised voices, but nothing telling. Alistair glanced over at Teagan. "This is a little awkward."

"You're telling me," Teagan replied. "He won't leave her though, and he won't force her out of his household. The man still loves her, in spite of everything."

"Yes, I've come to see how that sort of thing works," Alistair said, and then pushed himself up off the wall. "Come on. Let's see if we can go find that wayward brother of mine." Teagan nodded and followed him through the manor. They found him minutes later in the training room next to the armory, using a dulled practice blade to systematically beat the stuffing out of a training dummy. Alistair and Teagan said nothing to let him know they were there. After a few moments, Malcolm stopped hitting the dummy and just stood there, glaring furiously at it. "I think if you were going to set something on fire just by glaring at it, you'd have done it years ago," Alistair told him.

Malcolm made a rude gesture with his hand, but didn't turn around. Teagan laughed as Alistair glowered. "Oh, come on, I didn't deserve that," Alistair said to Malcolm.

His brother sighed loudly, rested the flat of the practice blade horizontally against the back of his neck, hooked his arms over each end of the sword, and turned to face the other two men. "I'm really starting to think that Eamon seriously overestimates just how much patience I have."

"Funny," said Alistair, "I didn't think it'd be hard to overestimate _none_."

"The fact that you're still alive alone should prove that I have some sort of patience in me," Malcolm said.

Eyes warily going back and forth between the two brothers, Teagan said, "Patience or lack of patience aside, I honestly don't think Eamon noticed what Isolde was doing."

Malcolm tilted his head to the side. "Really?"

The bann shrugged. "I believe so. He truly was interested in learning as much about the Circle of Magi that he could because of Connor."

"Fair enough," Malcolm said, and sighed before putting away the practice blade.

"If it makes you feel any better, Eamon is arguing with Isolde right now," Alistair said.

Malcolm went and sat down on one of the benches lining one of the room's walls. "Unless he's telling her to leave and never come back, it won't make me feel better."

Alistair sat down next to him. "You know he'll never do that."

"I'll never do what?" Eamon's voice asked from the doorway.

When Alistair and Malcolm said nothing, and instead exchanged uneasy looks, Teagan said, "Tell your wife to leave."

"You're right, I would never do that," Eamon confirmed as he strode into the room. "For all her faults, I love her."

Malcolm shot angrily to his feet and spread his arms out in frustration. "And yet you expect me to leave the woman I love?"

"The situation between you and Morrigan is not the same!" Eamon shouted.

"Morrigan has proven thus far to be much nicer," Malcolm said, "and she's the one who's supposed to be the witch."

Alistair winced and saw Teagan do the same. This was not going to end well unless someone brought a halt to it. Might as well be him. He stood up. "Enough. This has to stop." He turned and faced the arl. "Eamon, Malcolm would no less leave Morrigan than you would leave Isolde. Continuing to harp on the subject will do not one any good at all. It only makes you fight with one another instead, when you need to be allies. If it comes up in the Landsmeet, we'll deal with it. If not, it can be dealt with if it ever comes up afterward. In the list of things that need our attention, whatever problems you have with Malcolm being with Morrigan shouldn't be anywhere near the top. At all."

Eamon narrowed his eyes at Alistair. "I don't think you understand what—"

"I understand enough, Eamon," Alistair interrupted. "I understand my brother well enough to know what he will and will not do. The more you pressure him to end it, the more he will refuse to. It's a waste of time and energy to try and change it. And you know what? Here's the thing. We could die tomorrow. We could walk out into the market district, be arrested by Loghain's guards, tried and summarily executed before lunchtime. I know you've noticed, but I'll remind you anyway, there's a Blight on. We fight darkspawn almost every day. And if it isn't darkspawn, it's demons or abominations, the undead or bandits, or any other number of creatures. For Andraste's sake, we've even fought a high dragon. What I understand from all this is that our time here is short. In our profession in being Grey Wardens, and apparently in this political profession of being bastard princes, our lives can be even shorter than most. He's found someone he loves and who loves him in return. You would deny him that when he could die tomorrow or the next day or the next defending you from the Blight? I understand that what he has is fleeting and that not you, or I, or anyone else has the right to take that away, because the Maker truly decides when that will happen." He pause and took a breath before finishing with, "As it happened to me." And Alistair willed himself not to cry, because he was a man, and he was making a really good point, and doing a really good job of sticking it to the arl about his brother.

During Alistair's little speech, Eamon had opened his mouth to reply, but at those last words, he shut it.

When Eamon didn't reply, Alistair continued, "So I'm considering that matter closed, and so should you. As for the matter of Isolde, as we can no less ask Malcolm to leave Morrigan, neither can we ask you to force Isolde away. One thing we can do, however, is make it so that if you are ever ill or otherwise unable to fulfill your duties as arl, that it isn't Isolde who will take your place, but Teagan. She may remain your wife, and arlessa in name only. But legally, should someone else have to run the arling, it will be Teagan." Alistair glanced over at the man in question and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

Teagan shrugged listlessly. "It's okay. I saw it coming."

Eamon sighed. "As much as it pains me to say so, I agree." Then he glanced over at Malcolm, who'd yet to say a word or react outwardly. "You truly love Morrigan?"

He met the older man's look. "Yes."

Eamon studied him for a moment longer, and then gave a slight shrug. "All right. I'll let it go, if you will do the same for me."

A frown remained on Malcolm's face. "Eamon, I really can't abide by her behavior any longer," he said in a level tone.

"She has agreed to leave you alone," the arl said. "And tomorrow she is going to the Denerim Chantry to speak with the Revered Mother and seek out the start of her journey to find forgiveness. I know I cannot reassure you of the truth in her heart, but that's all I have to give you right now."

Malcolm's brow furrowed for a moment before he replied, "I can accept that."

Alistair looked between them. "And now that that's settled, if you will excuse me, I need to get some air." When none of the other men objected, he quickly made his way out of the room and then equally as quickly out of the manor. Outside, he found his way to the battlements, away from the bustling manor and the guard stations. Once he was alone, and was sure of it, he let out the breath he'd been holding. When he'd launched that tirade at Eamon about Malcolm, he hadn't thought it would go in the direction it'd gone. As much as it had surprised the other three men, it had surprised him even more. And he hadn't been ready for it and the pressing emotions of his grief. Now that he was by himself, he could get control back. He sat with his back against the parapet, letting his head rest against the cold, grey granite. But the lost control never surfaced. His eyes drifted to the night sky, and when his gaze trailed over the river of Alindra's tears, for the first time, he wept for what he had lost at Honnleath.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

**Malcolm**

Considering how urgent the summons from Eamon had sounded coming from the breathless elven servant, Malcolm found the arl seemed remarkably relaxed in his study. Alistair was already there, looking antsy and shooting uneasy glances at the dark haired elven woman who stood next to the arl. Eamon smiled at Malcolm. "Malcolm, I trust you've made yourself comfortable?"

Malcolm smirked and decided he didn't want to be tactful any more today than he had been yesterday. It had felt awfully good watching the outrage on Loghain's face when he'd made the comment about his lack of strategic capability. "Actually, I was hoping for silk sheets and candied grapes." As Malcolm finished walking into the room, Gunnar did as well, standing at his side and watching the woman beside Eamon rather intently.

That comment earned him a right glower from the arl and a quickly swallowed laugh from Alistair. "Why don't we ensure Loghain won't have us all executed first, and worry about how to celebrate later?" Eamon motioned toward the woman standing next to him. "This is Erlina. She's—"

The elf interrupted Eamon. "I am Queen Anora's handmaiden," she said in an Orlesian-accented voice. "She sent me here to ask for your help."

Eamon harrumphed. "Or perhaps the young lady prefers to speak for herself."

Resisting a smile, and wary of what Anora's real intentions were, Malcolm turned to Erlina. "Why would Anora ask us for help?"

"The queen, she is in a difficult position," the handmaiden answered. "She loved her husband, no? And trusted her father to protect him. When he returns with no king and only dark rumors, what is she to think? She worries, no? But when she tries to speak with him, he does not answer. He tells her 'not to trouble herself.'"

Knowing what he did of Anora, that didn't seem like her, to just accept that sort of platitude from anyone, including her father. But, if the queen believed that her father killed her husband, she might suspect she could also be a potential victim. "Are you saying the queen believes Loghain killed Cailan?"

The elf shrugged. "My queen suspects she cannot trust her father. And Loghain, he is very subtle, no? But Rendon Howe, he is privy to all the secrets and... not so subtle." Malcolm snorted at that. Erlina frowned at him before continuing, "So she goes to Howe. A visit from the queen to the new Arl of Denerim is only a matter of courtesy. And she demands answers. He calls her every sort of name, 'traitor' being the kindest, and locks her in a guest room."

And suspiciously timed to their arrival in Denerim. Anora had had all these paths months to ask Howe what was going on with her father, and she suddenly decides to take action now? And then conveniently held captive by the sadistic lunatic of an arl, whereupon her handmaiden, mysteriously not a captive, pleads to them for help, and they run off to save Anora, where they could very well end up looking as if they were trying to kidnap the queen, or could just be walking into a straight up ambush. He lifted an eyebrow in Erlina's direction. "What does this have to do with us?"

"I think her her life is in danger. I heard Howe say she would be a greater ally dead than alive. Especially if her death could be blamed on Arl Eamon."

"Would Loghain kill his own daughter just to frame you?" Alistair asked Eamon.

Eamon shrugged. "It doesn't even matter what the answer is. We may have no choice but to trust Anora. The queen is well-loved. If Loghain succeeded in pinning her death to me... I'm not sure that's a risk we can afford to take."

"Obviously this is a trap," Malcolm pointed out.

"If this is a trap, we are already caught in it. They can kill Anora whether or not we act and blame her death on us. Few would believe our word over Loghain's. We can only defend ourselves with the queen in hand," said Eamon.

"Politics give me a headache," Alistair said.

Malcolm smirked at him. "I've also heard politics can give you a bad case of dead, too."

His brother rolled his eyes, and then looked at the arl. "You don't seriously want us to go rescue her, do you?"

Eamon sighed. "We have to help."

"Yes, we have to help get us _dead_ apparently," said Malcolm, wondering exactly where Eamon's reason had wandered off to. "Have you taken a blow to the head, Eamon? Because if you people are so determined to see us imprisoned, and then killed by Loghain, we could just stroll right over to the palace and turn ourselves in. I imagine that will save everyone a lot of trouble. Because, really, this is pretty much the same thing. You know what he did to my family and we didn't have any warning like this. He knows exactly what he's doing and now he's just sitting back and waiting for us to show up to rescue Anora, probably itching to start in with the torture."

"He kind of has a point," his brother said to Eamon.

"And I suppose one of you has a better idea?"

Malcolm resisted the urge to bash his head against a wall. "Living, for one." The single person who would have the best knowledge and ideas for dealing with this situation was Leliana. And thanks to the darkspawn, she was dead. But there had to be another way to go about this other than him and Alistair and whoever else they took with them to try and rescue Anora. Because, obviously, other than outright attacking the Arl of Denerim's estate, it was the stupidest idea imaginable.

"I... I have some uniforms," the handmaiden offered. "Arl Howe hires so many new guards every day, a few more will not cause a stir. I could show you the servants' entrance. We could slip in and out with my queen before anyone is the wiser."

Gunnar growled, apparently thinking the idea was just as idiotic as the rest of them thought.

"We've done that sort of rescue before," Alistair said. "Went off without a hitch. Somehow I doubt our luck would hold for a second time, especially when this whole thing is so very obviously a _trap_." His eyes narrowed. "And how do we know you're actually Anora's handmaiden? Would Loghain even allow his daughter to have an Orlesian be so close?"

Erlina frowned and drew herself to her full height. "My lady does not allow her father to dictate what she can and cannot do."

Alistair raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because that's exactly what's been happening for the past year. Loghain has been running everything instead of Anora, when, if Anora was queen in more than name only, she would be running everything. I also doubt we'd have this problem about Grey Wardens being kept out of the country due to their being Orlesian."

"Loghain might not even have anything to do with this," Malcolm said, thinking the situation over again. "He might not even know that Howe has Anora. You're right about one thing: Loghain would never have an Orlesian in his employ. But Howe? He doesn't care about country of origin, he only thinks of himself. If he could figure out a way to kill Anora and blame it on Eamon or even us, like Eamon said, it would eliminate opposition to Loghain twofold—both the man's own daughter _and_ us. Howe could catch us in the act or just after, putting himself even more in Loghain's good graces, even though he wouldn't be able to save Loghain's daughter. I'm sure he'd make up a great sob story of how he tried but just could get there in time." Then Malcolm noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and the glint of metal. He raised his hand to ward off the coming blow and stopped it, the dagger in question piercing his hand through the palm and out the other side.

The pain drove him to drop to one knee and Erlina turned and ran, skirts swishing around her. Shouts from Eamon and Alistair brought guards from niches and posts around the manor. Gunnar bolted from the room after her, tackling her to the ground. The would-be Orlesian assassin found herself caught by a mabari wardog before she could get out of the estate. Gunnar was even intelligent enough just to catch and stand on the assassin and not kill said assassin. Malcolm stood up slowly. Holding the wrist of his impaled hand, he stepped over to the door. The arl's guards had surrounded Erlina and Gunnar, so he commanded the wardog to let the elf up. The dog's menacing growling kept Erlina from trying anything else as the guards took her into custody.

The guards searched her for weapons, poisons, lockpicks, or anything else she could use either to kill herself or to escape. On finding nothing, she was escorted to the holding cells downstairs for later questioning, while Wynne was found and brought to Eamon's study.

Malcolm stared at the dagger through his hand, wondering why it didn't hurt more, and walked absently back into the study.

There was pain, but it was more of a throb, really, when he figured it should be a lot worse. He really should've used his forearm to block the blow. It also made no sense why Erlina went for him instead of Eamon, the man whom Loghain and Howe thought to be the real person behind this play for the throne, or Alistair, the one who was first in line for said throne. It must've been because he was closest, or she was pissed that he'd figured her out, or a combination of the two.

"It's not bleeding that much," Malcolm said when Wynne entered the room. "Kind of surprising, really."

She scowled at him, took him by the elbow and had him sit on in the chair behind the arl's desk. Eamon and Alistair walked back into the study, three guards right behind them. Wynne told one of the guards to fetch towels. The guard shot a questioning look at Eamon, who said, "Do whatever she tells you to."

The guard nodded and ran out of the room. Wynne wordlessly cleared the arl's desk of papers. A servant shortly appeared with a stack of the requested towels. The mage took them and spread them across the desktop. "Now put your hand over the towels," she told Malcolm.

He did as he was told, a frown forming on his face. "Let me guess, this is the part that's going to hurt."

"If it's anything like getting an arrow taken out of your body, then yes," Alistair replied. "But thanks for taking one for the team. Much appreciated. Though, I think you just made her mad and that's why she picked you. All angry that you figured out the wonderfully devious plan of hers and Arl Howe's."

"I was just thinking out loud—_ow! _Andraste's flaming _ass_, Wynne, that hurt!" While he'd been arguing with his brother, the mage had taken the opportunity of his distraction to remove the dagger from his palm. As quickly as the lancing pain had started, it stopped as Wynne began her healing spell. Malcolm grumbled under his breath, though he was grateful for the help.

Alistair's face took on a mock pensiveness. "I wonder if Andraste's ass was ever actually flaming. I suppose it must have when she was put to the torch, but even the thought of that seems blasphemous. Yes. Nicely done on the swearing, Malcolm. I'm impressed."

"Could you two be serious for even one second?" Eamon said, his exasperation at their behavior quite evident in his tone.

"I apologize for my behavior," Malcolm replied. "Getting stabbed is serious business."

Eamon made a strained choking sound in his throat, and then he threw up his arms and left the room, presumably to cool off his temper.

Alistair watched him exit with his brows racing towards his hairline. "I don't think I've ever seen that particular reaction out of him before. Wow."

"Both of you need to stop testing that man's limits," Wynne said, placing Malcolm's hand on one of the non-bloodied towels. "He has been through a lot, and puts himself at great risk with all of these political goings-on. Almost as much risk as the two of you, and he is not so young as you."

"I'm sorry," Malcolm said, meaning it this time. "It's just that most of the time, if I don't make some sort of joke or laugh, I'd probably end up crying." He studied both sides of his hands, impressed once again at Wynne's abilities. "Thank you. Not even a scar."

She inclined her head. "Try not to let it happen again."

Teagan popped into the room, an odd look on his face as he kept glancing back out toward the corridor. "What did you say to my brother?" he asked Alistair. "He's pacing out in the hallway, muttering something about killing the two of you himself, giving up on Ferelden, and moving to the Free Marches."

Alistair pointed at his own brother. "He did it."

"You started it," Malcolm replied.

"Nevermind," said Teagan. "I imagine if I keep asking I'll end up like Eamon."

Zevran strode into the room with his trademark silent steps. "That is probably true." Then he crossed his arms and leaned against one of the walls. "I heard there was an attempt on your lives?"

"Not quite," Alistair said. "Howe sent an Orlesian something-or-other, having her claim to be Anora's handmaiden, and claiming that Anora was being held prisoner by Howe. She wanted us to sneak in dressed up as guards and 'rescue' Anora."

"Because we totally wouldn't be recognized at all," Malcolm added.

Zevran nodded. "Quite right. That does seem a poorly designed and rather obvious trap. I wonder if Anora was even captured in the first place." He cocked his head to the side. "Shall I go and find out?"

"Please do. And quickly," Alistair said. "If we actually need to pay a visit to the Arl of Denerim's estate, we should start planning said visit as soon as possible."

The Antivan bowed. "And so it shall be done. I'll take Morrigan and Líadan with me and report back as soon as I can." Then he ducked out of the room.

Malcolm turned to look curiously at Alistair. "If Anora is there, you want us to rescue her?"

"You and I both know Howe is mad. And clever, which is a particularly deadly combination. He won't hesitate to kill Anora if it serves his best interests and he can figure out a way to pin it on someone else. With her in his creepy clutches, I'm sure he'd figure out a way to put the blame on Eamon or us. I think it's in our better interests to have the current queen of Ferelden owing us one. Though, if she's really a prisoner of his, I've no idea how we could rescue her. Us personally, anyway. Like it's been said, we're unfortunately recognizable."

"Which isn't entirely a bad thing in some circumstances," Eamon said, his expression now composed, as he walked back into the room. "Your physical resemblance to King Maric and King Cailan makes it so we don't have to produce any sort of written proof of your parentage."

Malcolm stopped himself from looking at Wynne. The only proof he knew of had been turned into long-dispersed ashes care of Morrigan. Wynne knew of the parentage, but people generally didn't trust mages, part of why they couldn't inherit titles and things. And he didn't know of anyone else who knew who his and Alistair's mother really was, so it seemed that secret was safe, provided he didn't feel overly guilty at some point and just blurt it out to Alistair.

"I suppose," said Alistair. "But in this case, in terms of rescuing a queen who could be held captive by a madman, it's unfortunate. We could send Zevran in with some people he'd think would be able to help him, but the other person..." he trailed off and fell silent.

The others present in the room didn't need to hear the rest of it anyway. They all knew he was referring to Leliana, and they all knew he was right. Malcolm wondered if they shouldn't just conduct an all-out frontal assault on the Arl of Denerim's estate just on principle. With the current political situation, he'd never see it coming. Nothing that direct, anyway. Then he thought of something. "We could have him arrested."

Every head in the room swiveled around to face him. "What?" Eamon and Alistair asked.

"Arl Howe. He _has_ committed some pretty serious crimes. We don't even have to bring Fergus into it. We just need him out of his estate so he can't spring whatever trap he has. He'd insist on bringing most of his guards with him so that nothing serious could be done to him while he's at Fort Drakon. He could even just be brought in for questioning by the Captain of the Guard or something. I'm sure once he's in custody and in Fort Drakon he'll send someone whining to Loghain to get him released, but it'd take a few hours for everything to be sorted out. While that's going on, we can spring Anora from his place if she's really there."

Eamon raised a surprised eyebrow. "That... could actually work." He turned to one of his guards. "Have someone send for the Captain of the Guard. I suspect by the time he's able to get here, we'll have heard from Zevran one way or another."

"So now we wait?" Alistair asked.

"Yes."

Malcolm scowled. Wynne excused herself to go get some errands done, followed soon after by Teagan. Servants bundled into the room and cleaned up Eamon's desk, whereupon Eamon chased Malcolm out of his chair so he could go over accounts for his arling. Alistair started pacing until he got a annoyed frown from Eamon, and replaced pacing with fidgeting. Finally, he turned to Malcolm and said, "Maybe we should find some maps." He apparently had an idea in mind but had only said the very end of it out loud.

"What for? You want to burn another map of Ferelden?"

Eamon looked up sharply from his paperwork. "_That's_ where my map of Ferelden went?"

"It was sacrificed for the glorious cause of symbolism," Malcolm immediately said in his brother's defense.

"That's it. Both of you, get out. Go find something else to do until Zevran gets back, someone else to bother, anything rather than stay here." When both of them looked at him in askance, he pointed forcefully toward the door. "Not kidding. Out."

They shrugged and walked out of the room, clueless about what to do with themselves as they waited for their Antivan friend to get back from his scouting. So they started wandering through the manor, Gunnar trotting at their sides, swapping from brother to brother in his own restlessness. Their wandering eventually brought them to the front hall, where Shale had positioned itself near one of the statues almost in a manner that made it look like another inert statue. Malcolm frowned. "Didn't you spend enough time as a statue in Honnleath?"

"Being a statue is a remarkably good way to gain information about the people around it," Shale replied.

"Conversation works, too, you know," Alistair said. "And it's less creepy."

"It would think that, wouldn't it?"

"Don't knock it until you've tried it. I bet you that whatever information you found out you could've gotten just by talking to some of us. So let's hear what you've got."

Shale nodded. "I have found out some interesting things. For instance, its plans to be made king because of its parentage. I had thought before it looked familiar."

Alistair crossed his arms. "Looked familiar?"

"Yes. I recall the fussy mage having me protect a human prince who looked like it does, even with the shiny armor. The resemblance is quite striking."

"Hey, Maric was shiny like you," Malcolm said.

"Shut up. I'm not listening to this."

"Because it has something better to do?" asked Shale.

The main doors of the manor opened and Zevran walked in, followed by Líadan and Morrigan. Alistair looked triumphantly at the golem. "I do now."

Shale raised a stony eyebrow. "It would do the painted elf?"

Malcolm snorted.

"And here I thought he would never ask," said Zevran, grinning at Alistair.

Alistair rolled his eyes. "Is Anora there or not?"

"Yes. From what I could gather, the queen is most decidedly a prisoner of Howe's, though she is held upstairs in a guest room and not in the dungeons. Though if you are planning on pretending to be one of their guards, I would not recommend it. Their guards do not wear helmets. Oh, and you would be walking into a trap. Most unwise," Zevran replied, and then tilted his head to the side. "Why are you not waiting in Arl Eamon's study?"

"We got kicked out," Alistair mumbled.

"Whatever for?"

Malcolm sighed. "Apparently we were overly irritating."

"I never would have guessed," Líadan said.

The doors opened again to admit one of Eamon's messengers and a man wearing the livery of Denerim's city guard. The messenger nodded at the group in the front hallway, and then starting escorting the guard towards Eamon's office. Malcolm assumed the new man must be the Captain of the Guard. He motioned to the others, and the group followed the other two to Eamon's office. Once there, Eamon explained to the Captain of the Guard, Captain Ross, what charges he wanted leveled on Arl Howe.

Ross sputtered at him for a moment before finally saying, "Teyrn Howe, you mean."

Malcolm blinked. "After all he just told you, that's all you can say?"

The captain ignored him and continued to talk to Eamon. "You realize that even if I bring Teyrn Howe to Fort Drakon that the charges won't stick? It would be a waste of time."

"Justice is never a waste of time, Captain," Eamon replied.

Malcolm would have to remember that line if he ever had the chance to use it.

Ross huffed. "Fine. I will bring Howe in to answer the charges forthwith." He spun on his heel and left the room.

"Oh, I like this plan," Zevran said as soon as the captain was out of earshot. "With Howe and most of his guards gone, we can just put Malcolm and Alistair in cloaks, make them follow me, and then waltz into this pretty estate of Howe's. Yes. Let us go. I suspect this captain will want this chore to be over and done with quickly."

Zevran had them fetch their cloaks, for once thankful of the blustery weather, and led them to the Arl of Denerim's estate. The elf placed them in some appropriately deep shadows as they watched the show when Captain Ross approached Howe and called for his arrest. Howe predictably put up a spectacular argument, to which Ross didn't capitulate, and then deigned to follow to Fort Drakon. Howe gathered almost all of the guards he had on duty, leaving only a skeleton crew behind, and walked in the center of the crowd of the soldiers to Fort Drakon. Before the entourage left, Howe sent a messenger to the palace. The messenger chose the wrong path, crossing mere feet from where the three of them hid, and Zevran deftly stepped out of the shadows and knocked the boy out. "That should keep that snake tied up for even longer now," Zevran said. "Let's go to the servants' entrance, storm the castle, and save the queen."

"You just wanted to say storm the castle," Alistair told him.

"Perhaps." And Zevran took off, leaving them to follow. They did, and they found little opposition. The guards were spread out enough that when they took care of the ones who objected to their visit, they weren't able to raise the alarm. Mostly, they were ignored, and they didn't mind that at all. Zevran brought them to a side hallway, and at the end of it, they found a magically sealed door. "The queen is supposed to be in there," said the elf.

"Who is that? Who is out there?" a female voice asked from inside the room.

"Housekeeping," Zevran answered.

Alistair punched him in the arm and said, "The Grey Wardens."

"Thank the Maker," the woman said. "I am Queen Anora. If you would—"

"How do we know you're really Queen Anora?" Malcolm asked.

"How am I supposed to answer that?" came the outraged reply from inside. "Shall I try to shove my crown under the door? Do you think the royal family has a secret knock?"

Malcolm looked over at his brother. "_Is_ there a secret knock?"

He shrugged. "How should I know? If there is one, it must be an acknowledged member of the family sort of knock that bastards aren't privy to."

"Alistair? Is that you?" the woman asked.

"I am starting to believe it is indeed the queen," said Zevran. "The amount of exasperation in her voice when she says your name, Alistair, can only be from one who knows you."

"I hate you," Alistair said to Zevran. Then he turned toward the door. "Yes, it's Alistair. Quick question: you don't have a handmaiden who's Orlesian, do you?"

"Of course not. Do you really think my father would allow that? You... you didn't _follow_ someone here, did you? Tell me you didn't."

Alistair scowled at the door even though Anora couldn't see him. "I'm not stupid, you know, even though Morrigan says I am."

"Who is Morrigan?"

"Someone you'd probably get along with famously," Alistair replied. "Anyway, no, we didn't follow the Orlesian here, we captured her instead when she tried to murder Malcolm."

"I suppose you have something going for you, then," came the reply.

"She would most assuredly get along with Morrigan," said Zevran.

"As fantastic as this conversation is, we should really get out of here. There's no telling how long or short a time Howe is going to be at Fort Drakon. Can you cleanse the area in order to get rid of that seal?" Malcolm said, slightly annoyed that Anora hadn't cared about the attempt on his life.

Alistair squinted at the door. "I... wish?"

"That's heartening."

"We'll have to kill the mage who's maintaining it. He has to be nearby."

Malcolm glanced at the door to the hallway. "Probably in the dungeons doing something not nice."

Alistair sighed and looked at the door again. "We'll be back soon. Have to go kill a mage and probably a bunch of other people who won't want us to kill the mage." He motioned to Zevran and Malcolm and they ducked back out into the corridor.

The elf led them first to the master suite, where he swiped whatever papers and pocketable valuables that he saw as he brought them to the dungeon entrance. An entrance which was creepily inside the master suite and unlocked. Apparently Howe had left in a hurry when Captain Ross had shown up. Zevran put his ear to the door and held up one finger to indicate that there was one guard. Then he slowly pushed the door open when the guard was on the far side of the room beyond judging by footsteps, and they slipped inside. Startled, the guard jumped on seeing them. "Who goes—"

And then a pair of hands from a nearby cell grabbed him and snapped his neck, followed by those same hands grabbing the keys from his belt, the cell door opening, and the body being dragged in.

"Wait a minute, I've seen that handiwork before," Alistair said.

"Last time I saw this, I said it was badass. Now I'm thinking it's just well practiced," said Malcolm, who then pitched his voice a bit louder. "Riordan, tell me that's not you and you didn't get caught in Highever and brought here. Because that would seriously be problematic and this is definitely in the opposite direction of Jader."

A figure in the deceased guard's splintmail stepped out of the cell. "I regret to inform you that I did not make it to Jader," said Riordan, abashed.

"You don't say," said Malcolm.

"See, you should have let me come along, no?" said Zevran.

Riordan sighed. "The ship's captain sold me out before we even left the port. Apparently the bounties on our heads have reached five hundred sovereigns. Part of me can't blame the captain for turning me in. That's quite a bit of coin."

"Coin that should be going towards the war effort with the darkspawn," Alistair grumbled.

Zevran stroked his chin. "Hmm. I am almost tempted."

"Price is on your head, too," Malcolm said.

"Good point. I suppose you are all safe, then. I will not turn you in."

"I'm so relieved to hear that." Alistair moved towards the second door in the room, the one that led to the lower dungeons. "Come on, let's go deal with this mage so we can get Queen Anora back to Arl Eamon's estate."

"You came here to rescue the queen?" asked Riordan, strapping on the dead guard's sword.

"Arl Eamon said it was the politically correct thing to do," Alistair replied.

Malcolm followed Zevran and Alistair's example and moved toward the second door. He glanced back to make sure Riordan was all set, and then started chuckling. Then he couldn't make himself stop, just kept chuckling.

Riordan gave him an odd look. "What are you laughing at?"

"I can't believe you got caught again," Malcolm said in between giggles. "I mean, seriously. You'll all wise and knowledgeable and can sneak around and move in shadows and stuff, and that's twice we've sprung you out of jail."

"I don't want to hear about it."

"_Twice_."

"That's enough out of you."

"Okay, okay." Malcolm desperately worked on keeping a straight face. Then another laugh escaped.

"Keep it up, lad, and you'll soon find my boot in a very uncomfortable spot."

"I'm trying!" He finally composed himself enough for Alistair to deem it safe to continue. Howe had left the dungeon itself well-guarded still and they had to fight through quite a few of his men-at-arms. They soon discovered why—Howe had a lot of prisoners. They interrupted one torture session of an unlucky lordling named Oswyn, who happened to be Bann Sighard's son. He'd had the misfortune of being the friend of one of the soldiers from Loghain's unit at Ostagar, who'd told him how they'd retreated before Cailan's position had been overrun. The next person they found was an actual survivor from Ostagar, though from his mad mutterings it was hard to tell if he'd been one of Loghain's men or someone who'd somehow managed to live through being overrun. They found the mage in the last room, where a smite from each brother took him down and Riordan's stolen blade took him out.

"Should take care of that little magical seal problem," Alistair said, sheathing his sword. "Let's go fetch the queen, shall we? And then we'll have a little chat about what it means to be queen and ruling a nation and, oh, I don't know, defending said nation from a Blight."

The four of them crossed back through the rooms littered with dead bodies thanks to their efforts, and back up to where the queen was trapped. She graced them with a regal smile when they picked the normal lock and opened the door. "My thanks," she said.

"You're welcome, I suppose," Alistair replied.

Anora's hands went to her hips. "You _suppose_?"

"Perhaps we should get going instead of arguing," said Zevran. "As much as I love to watch a good row, we've little time left to dally, I'm afraid. If you would follow me, I will bring you outside and back to Arl Eamon's estate."

The queen inclined her head. "Lead the way."

Trap deftly evaded, a Grey Warden and a dowager queen rescued, the small group made their way back to the Arl of Redcliffe's estate.


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41**

**Alistair**

Alistair wanted to kill her. They hadn't even gotten halfway back to Arl Eamon's estate before Anora started trying to issue them orders. And the way she looked at him—she looked more down on him than Morrigan ever had, and he'd never thought that possible. It also didn't help that his brother seemed to be taking great glee over Alistair's discomfort. Didn't help matters one bit.

"We must stop at the palace so I can pick up some of my things," Anora said as they passed through a busy square.

"You... we... what? Are you insane?" Alistair asked.

"I have important documents."

"Important documents," he repeated slowly. "Just how important are these documents?"

"You seek to discredit my father, do you not?"

"He's done a rather spectacular job of doing that himself—"

Zevran broke in and said, "Perhaps we should continue this and all other discussions once we're back at the estate. This isn't exactly a private area in which to conduct clandestine conversations."

Anora inclined her head to the Antivan. "I suppose you are right."

"You _suppose_?" Malcolm asked, mimicking Anora's tone from earlier.

The queen glared at him, but kept her silence, as was wise.

Malcolm smirked.

Alistair could've sworn from behind him he heard Riordan mutter something about Blessed Andraste and the Maker giving him the patience to endure. Though, he could've been wrong. No one else said anything as they finished their trip through the city and, amongst odd looks from the guards, arrived back at the Arl of Redcliffe's estate. As the others continued up toward Eamon's study, Alistair took a moment to stop and tell the officer in charge to double the amount of guards. He had a feeling Howe, once he discovered his dungeons and guest room empty, would be far less than pleased. The officer saluted him and ran off to fetch more guards. That done, Alistair strode up to Eamon's study, wondering just what they would do next now that they had a queen in their possession.

Though, he wasn't sure he was thrilled about that. The woman kept giving him nasty glares, as if she knew he wanted to steal her throne. She obviously wasn't the royalist that Eamon was—she wanted the throne for herself. Once, a long time ago, he would've told her she could have it. But not any longer. Honnleath had changed him for good. Seeing how those men and women fought for him, seeing how they stood a chance to succeed against the Blight, and after, seeing how those men and women looked at him, the hopes they expressed at their fires, he wouldn't let them down. Men and women had already died for him and he owed it to them, at the very least, to take the throne. And Leliana...

She had always believed in him. He knew her belief in him would never waver, even from the Fade, and he would prove that belief to be true. Nothing would be wasted, he would see to it. Not lives, not beliefs. Nothing would be in vain, not like at Ostagar, where everyone's hopes and dreams were shattered, crushed underneath the feet of darkspawn and treachery.

His eyes narrowed at Anora as he stepped into Eamon's study. Treachery carried out by this woman's father. But, it had been her father's choice, not hers. She hadn't been there, she'd been here in Denerim. However, in the months after, all of those atrocities against civilians in the name of the Crown, some of those he held her accountable for. She had been here, with her father and that awful Howe, and had been in a place to do something. There were lives she could have saved and she hadn't. The study, though the room was large, was a bit on the crowded side. Shale stood solidly between the two floor-to-ceiling windows where the mid afternoon sun poured through to pool on the floor. Oghren stood next to it, at times glancing up uneasily at the golem. Morrigan, Wynne, and Líadan waited near the fire, quietly watching the proceedings. Morrigan with her slightly detached gaze, Wynne standing perfectly still and taking everything, and Líadan with her barely restrained restlessness chewing on her lower lip, all of them quietly observing. Gunnar, tongue lolling in a happy dog grin, sat at Malcolm's feet, directly in front of Eamon's desk. Riordan was nowhere to be seen, though Alistair wasn't surprised. The man had wanted a hot bath and hot food and a change of clothing into his own before he met with anyone. Zevran lounged against the wall nearest the door, his restlessness perfectly contained as he maintained an air of quiet confidence and skill.

Alistair leaned over to him as he went through the doorway. "Would you be able to get into Anora's room at the palace without being detected?"

"As surely as Shale is a golem, my friend. You want me to go and fetch whatever papers she speaks of, yes?"

He nodded. "Best we have them in our possession before Loghain, or Maker forbid, Howe finds them."

"I agree." Zevran reached into a pouch at his side and produced a few papers and an opened letter. "These might come in handy. I took them from Howe's room. It could give us hard evidence against him."

"You mean other than his endless trail of dead bodies and tortured people?"

"More is good, no?"

"True. Would you be okay going now and missing out on this most likely highly entertaining conversation?"

"As long as you give me all the gossip later, my friend." Zevran clapped him quietly on the shoulder and slipped out of the room. Eamon shot Alistair a curious look at the Antivan's departure, but Alistair signaled that he'd tell him later.

Apparently, introductions had already been made, and Anora was already loftily explaining her position to the crowd in the office. "...we must work together. My father has gone mad. I didn't believe it at first, but he is gripped by a paranoia so severe it prevents him from seeing sense. He saw me as a threat, yet even now I'm certain he will be telling the nobles you are dangerous murderers who have kidnapped and mind-controlled me. He—"

"I told you it was a trap," Malcolm said to Eamon, interrupting the queen.

"And I told you we'd sprung it as soon as we walked into Denerim," replied Eamon, looking a bit testy.

Anora frowned at the shrugging Malcolm, and continued, "He may even believe it."

"Is there no way to reason with him?" Eamon asked.

"I thought so. I'd hoped so. Howe's influence is strong. And I know my father, and he is committed to his course. He will see this through, no matter what. You will need much ammunition and I can help in that regard. You have only just arrived in the city, so perhaps you are unaware of some of the recent events. Denerim has been in turmoil since Ostagar. Many people here are angry or grieving. Strangely, the unrest is worse in the alienage, as few elves accompanied the army. They should have little reason to be upset, which means Howe and my father must have given them reason. I think I know what's happening there and I'm certain my father has his hands in it. And I have some minor evidence, but it remains in my rooms in my palace, and these...gentlemen... declined to go there."

"You say the word 'gentlemen' like you'd rather have said fools," said Malcolm, eyes narrowing in anger at Anora. "Walking into the palace, through a servants' entrance or the front doors would have been suicide. You either wanted us to be captured or you are far less intelligent than I thought."

Without waiting for the queen's reaction, Alistair stuck his head out the door and signaled for guards. Then he returned to watching the proceedings.

Anora stared at Malcolm, as if she were trying to freeze him merely from her look. Malcolm return the gaze without showing any sign of intimidation.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Eamon asked.

"I had not thought—"

"That we wouldn't be stupid?" Malcolm supplied.

She scowled, and for the first time, Alistair thought he saw some of her father in her. "No. I had not thought things through. I realize now that a trip to the palace would have been unwise. However, someone sneaking into the palace and retrieving my belongings would be a wise course of action."

"Already done," Alistair said. "Well, in the process of, anyway. Zevran is on his way there now."

Eamon gave him a curt nod. "Well done."

"We'll know if it's well done once Zevran gets back," he replied.

"In truth," said Anora, "I'd hoped we might join forces. You need that evidence for the Landsmeet, and probably any evidence you could get from a visit to the alienage, but you also need a stronger candidate for the throne. Me."

Several people either scoffed or choked at Anora's audacity. Alistair thought he even heard a derisive rumble coming from Shale. "It sounds more like you need us," Malcolm said.

Anora flicked an imperious glance at Alistair before saying, "I have no doubt that Alistair is biddable enough, and decent, but even with his blood he is no king. You think only I can see it? Not only that, Alistair is a Grey Warden. It will look like you are trying to put a Grey Warden on your throne, despite your claims. I am a neutral party, and I am already queen."

Eamon held up his hands. "Anora, you are indeed Cailan's widow, but—"

"I am the daughter of Ferelden's greatest general. Who do you think ruled this nation for the last five years? Cailan? I am what this country needs, not some untrained king who does not even want the throne."

"Ferelden's greatest general who lost one of the pivotal battles against the darkspawn at the start of the Fifth Blight," Alistair pointed out, indignant and growing angrier by the second. He was sick of people assuming he was stupid and had no idea what he was doing. Months ago, that had been the truth. Not so any longer. "Ferelden's greatest general who has caused a civil war in the face of annihilation from the darkspawn. Ferelden's greatest general who allowed the king to die because he quit the field. And you put yourself forth as a good queen? Because you've done such a fantastic job yourself over these past months? Why don't—"

"Alistair," Eamon tried to interrupt.

Alistair held up a single hand to the arl without looking away from Anora. "No, Eamon, I will finish what I have to say. Why don't you explain to me, _Queen_ Anora, just what you have done for these past months, this past _year_, for the people of Ferelden?"

"I could do nothing!" she protested. "My father had control of the throne."

"And you did not."

"No, I did not," the words left her mouth slowly in her reluctance to say them.

"Meanwhile, my brother and I have been gathering an army to fight the darkspawn, defending those in the Bannorn who oppose your father in the civil war, even fighting larger battles against the darkspawn. We have secured alliances and warriors from the Dalish elves and the dwarves, when your father never tried to contact the Dalish, and couldn't even get his messengers into Orzammar. We have secured Redcliffe from destruction at your father's hands, we have gathered whom we could from the Bannorn who would like you and your father off the throne. Those who believe in fighting the actual threat, the _Blight_, and not the nonexistent threat of Orlesian invasion. You think me untrained? Just look at what we've done over the past year. Maric did much the same as he regained his throne from Meghren. Would you have called him the same? Anora, you have no idea the things we've done in this past year. We've seen things long thought mythical, things you'd never believe. We found the Sacred Ashes of Andraste. We fought a high dragon. We've also faced the truth of what's happening out there. We have looked in the eye of the horde, we have seen the devastation they wrought and continue to do so even now. We have seen towns razed, villages Blighted, good Fereldans die from the taint." He forced the image of Leliana out of his head, needing all of his determination and anger, and none of his grief. "And just what have you done?"

"I..." Her gaze fell to the floor.

He could break her now, if he wanted, but he wouldn't. He didn't want her to be the ruler of Ferelden, and he wasn't a personal fan of hers, but she wasn't a bad woman. She didn't deserve to be broken, nor did he need her to be. "Anora, you will always be the queen. Not the ruling queen, that ended with Cailan's tragic death, whether you have acknowledged it or not. You are the dowager queen now, as much as you would like it to be otherwise, and Loghain is acting as a poor regent as we've waited far too long for a Landsmeet to be called to give Ferelden a proper ruler."

Finally, she looked up at him, her composure at the thin edge of cracking. "I think I will retire to my room," she said in an even tone.

"There are guards outside waiting to bring you there," Alistair replied.

She nodded and left the study, the guards escorting her to a specially prepared guest room. While she was not as much a prisoner of theirs as she'd been with Howe, she wouldn't be allowed to leave the estate, that much was certain. Once she'd left, Alistair closed the door and moved to stand closer to the arl's desk.

"Well," said Eamon, his gaze moving from the closed door to Malcolm and Alistair. "She's quite... spirited. I remember when Loghain first brought her to Denerim. Poor Cailan was a good boy, but Anora was always two steps ahead. Had him jumping when she snapped since the first time she batted her eyelashes. I cannot help thinking she may be trouble. But we should keep her close, all the same. This is an alliance of convenience, make no mistake. For the moment, we are united against Loghain. Be careful how much trust you place in her. I do not for a moment think Anora means to give up her power easily."

"Obviously not," said Malcolm. "The look of shock on her face when Alistair told her off was priceless."

Eamon sighed and ignored Malcolm's comment. "I would rather have her where we can watch her than actively working for Loghain. Admittedly, Anora was a capable administrator for Cailan's lands, but she has not a drop of royal blood. We did not fight the Orlesians all those year just to lose our royal line in a single generation. Not when there's surviving sons of the blood. Still, the two of you should at least try to be on good terms with her. You don't have to be the best of friends, but something approaching civil would be a good goal."

"You want us to go speak with her, I take it?" Alistair asked.

"I would recommend giving her some time to gather herself, but yes," Eamon replied. "Investigate what's going on within the alienage. As for now, you can move freely about in the city even after what has happened—Loghain wouldn't dare move on you until after the Landsmeet unless you go to the palace before. Make yourselves visible to commoners and nobles alike in the city. Check on our allies, gather more allies if you can, and find out what Loghain and Howe are up to in the alienage. I'm afraid that if we do not act quickly to continue eroding Loghain's support, we may all be seeing a great deal of Fort Drakon in the future."

Malcolm frowned. "Playing nice."

"Yes," Eamon told Malcolm rather vehemently. "You need to start remembering what Bryce and Eleanor taught you about manners and politics and get control of your mouth, young man. I know it's a mechanism you use to deal with emotions you'd rather not deal with, but now isn't the time or the place. Your actions are just as important as Alistair's right now. When we get the Landsmeet to confirm him as king, we'll be getting them to confirm you as the heir presumptive. He'll be recognized as King of Ferelden while you'll be formally recognized as a Prince of Ferelden. While those nobles who have met you find your humor endearing, it will not endear you to the Landsmeet when it's in session."

"You're right," Malcolm said, his easy capitulation surprising Alistair. Then again, Eamon had reminded him of how his parents had raised him. Of anything, his parents' legacy had that kind of power over him and despite its power, Eamon rarely brought it up unless he absolutely needed Malcolm's cooperation. And only if that cooperation required Malcolm to act like a mature adult instead of the young man that he was.

"Come on," said Alistair. "Let's go put a stop to whatever Loghain and Howe are up to in the alienage." Riordan had yet to appear and Alistair figured he'd taken the time to rest. He gathered that sleeping came with great difficulty when one was a prisoner of Howe's. They could do their investigating in the city and give the man time for his needed rest. Before they left the room, he gave Eamon a list of people they'd found in Howe's dungeon, and asked that messengers be sent to check that they'd arrived home safely, and to confirm their positions for the Landsmeet.

The group of them left the estate, running into Zevran just outside. The elf handed him a thick packet of papers. Malcolm held them up in his hand. "You read them already, I gather?"

"Of course," he replied. "They are messages to Anora from the elven elder inside the alienage. It seems he believes his people are being sold into slavery."

"Slavery? Are you sure?" Malcolm asked.

"There was no direct evidence, but they were asking Anora for an investigation. The latest letter was sent nearly a month ago."

"And yet during all that time, Anora has done nothing. She does, well, did, have personal guards she could have sent. Instead, nothing," he replied.

"She might actually be afraid of her father," Morrigan said. "Or perhaps afraid of this Howe. Certainly she would have heard of what happened in Highever. Even I feel some trepidation at the idea of facing the man. Though, my trepidation runs less on fear of him and more on keeping myself from doing him harm."

"Join the club," said Malcolm.

They strode through the Market Square and toward the Alienage. The guards at the gate gave them puzzled glances, but they allowed them to pass. Inside, they found themselves in the most cramped part of the city. The houses were mostly wooden, unlike most of Denerim, and seemed largely unfinished or halfway to falling down. Alistair could hear hammering far in the background, as if someone was trying to stem the inevitable collapse of a house. In the middle of everything, they found an incredibly huge tree, easily the largest Alistair had ever seen, even taller than the ancient trees he'd seen in the Brecilian Forest. It stretched far into the sky, reaching into the late afternoon sun with green leafy fingers. "I wonder if children get to climb it," he asked himself.

"It would need some lower branches," Líadan said from beside him. "I've never been in an alienage before, you know. This is the first time I've seen where the flat-ears live."

Alistair raised an eyebrow at her. "Flat-ears?"

A slight blush came to her cheeks. "It's... it's what we call the elves who live in the cities like humans. Flat-ears, like yours, because they're no different from humans."

"You might not want to call them that while we're here. If Arl Eamon is getting onto my brother about his behavior, it might help for you to be friendly, too. Or, at least, not use any terms like flat-ear. I can't see that going over well."

"I know," she replied. "I'll behave just as well as Malcolm. How's that?"

"Not as reassuring as I'd like."

"I heard that," Malcolm said from just in front of them.

"Good," Alistair told him. "Now set a good example for the younger Warden."

Malcolm turned around. "Have you considered the fact that I might be younger than her? Younger than all of you, actually?"

He blinked. No, he hadn't.

"I'm twenty-three," said Líadan. "Why? How old are you, Malcolm?"

"At some point in the past month I turned twenty," he replied. "I lost track of the days, and I'm not even sure what today is, but I know I had a birthday in the last month. So there. I'm younger than all of you. Let me act my age sometimes." Then he turned and walked closer to the crowd gathered off to the side of the tree.

Alistair followed his brother with his eyes, noting that there were two Tevinter mages standing outside one of the buildings, the crowd of elves forming a haphazard line in front of them.

"By the Stone," Oghren said from behind him, "that lad is but a babe."

"I dare you to tell him that to his face, dwarf," said Líadan.

"You're on, elf."

"Please don't do that right now,"Alistair said. "We really can't afford a scene at the moment. Let's just concentrate on the task at hand, and then you can torment him later when we're back at the estate and Eamon isn't looking."

"I'll hold you to that," said Oghren.

"Fine, whatever." He walked over to where Malcolm stood listening to the crowd.

One ragged-looking, actually, on second thought, Alistair realized, they were all ragged looking, woman said, "I've got children at home! I can't wait out here for another day!"

"So go home!" a younger woman shouted back at her. "The best thing you can do for your children is not trust these charlatans!"

"I like her," Líadan said quietly.

The man wearing Tevinter mage robes crossed his thick arms. "Everyone remain calm. We will help as many as we can today, so long as we can do this in an orderly fashion."

"Oh, you're helping us, are you, shem? Like Valendrian and my uncle Cyrion, you helped them, didn't you? Helped them never to be seen again!" the younger woman yelled at the mage.

"Yes, one of my new favorite people," whispered Líadan.

"Hush, child," said Wynne. Alistair shot her a grateful look. Líadan elbowed him in the side for it, but he remained quiet.

The mage at the front of the light gave a resigned sigh, the man's exasperation reminding Alistair of Eamon. "We've explained this to you before, girl. More whining will not persuade us to let you into the quarantine to carry plague back out to the alienage."

One of the male elves turned to the younger woman. "Quit trying to get us all killed, Shianni. Some of us have still got things to live for."

The woman, Shianni, looked away from the mage and toward the man who'd addressed her. "If this spell of theirs works, why are half the people they quarantine perfectly healthy?"

Malcolm glanced back at Alistair to see if he was ready to step in. Alistair gave him a short nod, and Malcolm stepped forward. "What's going on?"

Shianni whirled to face him. "What's wrong, shem? Did you get bored and decide to come watch the elves die of plague?" She gestured angrily at the Tevinters. "These foreigners say they're here to help with our outbreak of plague. Funny thing, though, all the people they help disappear."

"That's not true and you know it, Shianni," said a woman within hearing distance. "Both my sisters got the Tevinter spell cast on them, and they're fine."

"And where's your niece then? Any my uncle Cyrion? And Valendrian?"

"I remember Duncan talking about a friend in the Alienage named Valendrian," Alistair quietly told Malcolm. "And once more, it appears that Duncan knew everyone and everyone knew Duncan."

"Please just tell me what's happening here," Malcolm said to Shianni.

"Fine," Shianni said. "These foreigners have taken dozens of elves into that house over the last few weeks, and none of them have been seen again. One of them was our hahren, Valendrian. And I don't know what we're going to do if we don't get him back."

"Hahren?" Alistair repeated.

"It means elder," Líadan said.

Shianni gave Líadan a curious look, and then said to Alistair, "Yes. He's the elder. The person who guides us. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you, but that's important to us."

Malcolm cast an appraising look at the building. "I suppose we could go take a look around."

Shianni scoffed. "They aren't going to just let you in."

Malcolm grinned at her. "I wasn't going to ask."

"Well, just be careful. Those men are mages."

"We've got mages of our own," Alistair said. "And he and I have some templar abilities."

"Well, whatever your abilities, a frontal assault would be stupid. There's a side entrance in the alley with only one guard. Try that," the elf replied.

They left the crowd and walked towards the alley, studying the front of the building as they passed by. There were three normally armed guards, not mages, all carrying longswords and shields with the Tevinter symbol on them. Then there were the two mages armed with staffs. Yes, Shianni was right, a direct approach would be rather stupid of them. They moved into the alley, Alistair thinking it more of a path, really, as the streets in the alienage were as large as alleys were in the rest of the city. A single young elf in wearing steel heavy chainmail stood guard at a door at the top of a small flight of stairs.

At Malcolm's look at the door, the elf said, "No, you can't go inside 'just for a moment,' so you might as well walk right back around to the front doors." He sounded like he'd given the message a hundred boring times before they'd even appeared. "You shouldn't be out on the streets now, anyway, what with the plague."

It was Líadan who moved forward and spoke to the elf, anger in her voice. "Keeping your people from their families doesn't bother you?"

Guilt ran across the elf's face, but he remained steadfast. "Look, this is how things are. I didn't make the Blight, the plague, or anything. I'm just trying to make a living."

"How much do they pay you?" Alistair asked.

The guard sighed. "Not enough to put up with all these questions. What do you want?"

The quick offer of a few sovereigns had the guard walking away from the door and the alley almost instantly. They stepped into the building into an expansive room with throw rugs on the floor, a bunch of empty cots, and only a few guards. As fast as they saw the guards, they lay dead on the floor, no match for the group of them. Sometimes, Alistair wondered why people attacked them in the first place instead of running away. They had both he and Malcolm, two seasoned sword and shield fighters, three mages, an assassin, a wardog, a dwarven berserker, and a cantankerous golem. Hardly a group to be trifled with. Finding themselves alone, they searched the room, including a desk in the far corner with papers and a pile of gold on it.

Alistair pocketed the note after he read it, something about bringing eight males and six females with the next shipment, making this operation look more and more like the suspected slavery. In the next small, filthy room they released elves from cages. One told them about a back alley being where they took the others. Keeping that in mind, they exited through the side door and continuing through the side alley. They found a tenement building with an official notice hammered just outside it.

Líadan read it out loud: "Bearing arms is strictly prohibited. Elves who have swords will die upon them." Then she said, "Yeah, I'd like to see them try that on me."

"More fool them if they do," said Morrigan.

Alistair couldn't help but to agree. He couldn't understand most of the views and beliefs people had about elves, especially as he got to know his elven friends more and more. They were people, just as the rest of them. Sure, they had different beliefs, especially the Dalish, but so did other human nations from their own. He'd read the history between humans and elves, and if anything, elves had every right to hate humans. The elves had even sided and helped out with Andraste, and in the end, the Chantry had marched against them, which was ridiculous. When Alistair had expressed that particular opinion out loud in a class with the Revered Mother, that'd earned him a month straight scrubbing pots in the kitchens. Especially since he'd brought up how Shartan's involvement with helping Andraste had been struck from the canonical Chant of Light and made into a dissonant verse. There was no excuse for it and he'd never changed his mind on that particular opinion.

The inside of the tenement was cramped and claustrophobic, though Alistair had expected nothing different. Oddly, though, the tenement was largely devoid of people, and doors stood wide open to empty apartments. From the hallways, they could see the apartments had been wrecked, but not robbed. There were broken vases, bloodstains across floors. A well-loved toy doll, dropped and left behind, lay in the middle of one room. A table set for dinner that'd never been eaten. They exited the tenement building into a yard with a large sewage pipe draining into a pool of sludge.

A Tevinter guard looked up sharply at the footsteps. "What's this?" he asked them. "Another shipment already? We weren't—wait, you're no Tevinters. Who are you supposed to be?"

"Who are _you_ supposed to be?" Malcolm shot back.

Maker's breath, Alistair thought, he was at it again. Though he couldn't exactly blame him. As they'd walked through the various parts of the alienage, he'd felt his own anger rising and fighting to be let out. And the comment had been rather on the tame side. The guard shouted for the others to attack them, and another fight broke out, ending in three more dead bodies and hardly a scratch among Alistair and his companions. They stepped into the next building and found themselves facing five new guards, this one led by an elf carrying herself with the confidence of a Dalish, but lacking the facial tattoos marking her as one. That, and Alistair couldn't see a Dalish elf ever associating herself with slavers.

"What's the meaning of this?" asked the leader. "We were told that there would be no interference from the authorities."

"We're not with the authorities," Malcolm said.

The elf raised an eyebrow. "Oh? An errant group of do-gooders, then? You will regret this, you know. Believe it or not, we have been given dispensation to do our business here. You Fereldens talk a great deal about how very wrong slavery is, but isn't it funny how quickly the smell of gold overcomes such ideas? But enough of the talk of morality. I am here to halt your slaughter, nothing more."

Líadan crossed her arms and leveled a challenging glare at the other elf. "I'd like to see you try."

The elf studied their group again, taking in how many they had, and the various weapons they carried. "I am no fool," she said after a moment. "I can see you are capable. So be it. I will let Caladrius deal with you while I fetch the Regent's men. I suggest you leave while you still can." Then she pushed past their group, her men behind her, and out of the building.

Alistair figured the Caladrius guy must be the man in charge. He also noted that the woman had said Regent and not King. An interesting detail. They continued into the building and Alistair concluded that the operation must've been operating for quite a while. There were barracks, supplies, everything in place and used for an extended operation. Finally, they emerged into a large, two-level room, cages filled with elves lining the walls. A mage in Tevinter mage robes stood in the middle of it all, directing guards in various tasks. When they walked into the room, the man turned around, his shaved head reflecting the light from some of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling. "I am Caladrius," he said, fingers stroking his dark goatee. "And you, I assume, must be the Grey Wardens I've heard so much about."

"You've heard of us?" Alistair asked, though he knew he shouldn't be surprised.

Caladrius smiled, something that just didn't seem right on his face. "One can hardly get a word out of Regent Loghain besides 'warden' these days. It surpassed even 'gold' in popularity. I've also heard that you are trying to erode Loghain's support. It must be a difficult task, yes? Like washing away a mountain. Perhaps you could use some help."

"Don't you have an agreement with Loghain?" he asked.

Caladrius shrugged. "More of an arrangement, truth be told. One that disappears the moment angry, armed intruders storm my abode. There was always a limit to how long we were going to be able to operate here. We've paid for many of Loghain's troops, but once the Landsmeet is done, we become... inconvenient. So, here is my offer: one hundred sovereigns from you, and a letter from me with seal of the Teyrn of Gwaren upon it, implicating him in all of this. Then we leave a few days earlier than planned, with our profits and remaining slaves, unharmed."

He felt dirty even hearing the man's words. "No."

For a moment, it seemed like Caladrius was going to attempt to persuade him otherwise. Then he took note of the stony look on Alistair's face, and the similar countenances on his companions' faces. He let out a heavy sigh and said, "Let's do this the hard way then. Men? Shall we?"

Without having to check with his brother, Alistair knew Malcolm would immediately smite the mage, and Alistair did the same. Then Malcolm leapt over the railing and finished off Caladrius before he could say another word. On seeing their leader die so quickly, the rest of the soldiers fought halfheartedly, as if accepting their deaths as a foregone conclusion. Líadan and the others went and triggered all the releases on the cages, while Malcolm bent and searched through Caladrius's clothing and purses.

An older elf, with hair longer hair that probably even longer ago had gone grey, approached Alistair. "Obviously you aren't one of them. Who are you?"

Alistair cocked his head to the side. "Are you Valendrian? Shianni was looking for you."

The man's eyes lit up. "Shianni? Did she sent you here? Praise the Maker! I am most certainly Valendrian, but you haven't told me who you and your companions are, young man."

"We're Grey Wardens. Well, most of us. I'm Alistair. Duncan once mentioned that he knew a Valendrian. I take it that's you?"

Valendrian smiled warmly. "He's been a friend of mine for many years, yes. He came here, now and then, to look for potential recruits. Perhaps it seems strange to you, but Duncan was a man who knew talent could emerge in the most unlikely places. Tell me, how is he?" He paused as Alistair's eyes took on sadness at the loss of his mentor. "From the look on your face, I take it the news is bad."

When Alistair didn't answer immediately, Malcolm said, "He died at Ostagar."

Sadness then found Valendrian's face as well. "I am... sorry to hear that. I knew that the Wardens suffered great losses at Ostagar, but a few escaped. I had hope Duncan might be one of them."

"We did, too," said Alistair. Then he asked, "What will you do about the plague now?"

Valendrian shrugged. "We've been through outbreaks of pestilence during the war with Orlais. We'll endure. I doubt very much now that the Tevinter intervention would've helped us anyway. But my thanks for your rescue and dealing with these slavers. You will always be welcome in this Alienage. As for me, I would like to be out of this place. I'm of no mind to spend any more time here."

"Of course." Alistair inclined his head, and the elf left, the rest of the elves following him.

Malcolm showed him a paper with the seal of the Teyrn of Gwaren on it. "We've got him," he said.

Hearts inexplicably heavy and light, they made their way back to the arl's estate. There, he and Malcolm decided they'd just talk to Anora after dinner, since they had quite a bit of blood to wash off. Eamon was happy to have more evidence against Loghain, and as dismayed as they were, at least Alistair thought, about the actual slavery. Clean from his bath and in a fresh set of clothing, Alistair sat himself in front of the toasty fireplace in his room and picked up the sheaf of papers Zevran had given him from Arl Howe's room. One was the contract with the Crows on his and Malcolm's lives, another a message to Loghain, and one letter in Grey Warden cipher and in Duncan's handwriting. Alistair read it, and then read it again. The other papers were set aside, forgotten. He read the letter again. It was addressed to the Fiona person Alistair had noted ages ago, when he'd seen part of the letter that Malcolm had been trying to get away from Eamon, and that Morrigan had ultimately burned. Duncan was telling her about what'd happened to Malcolm and his family at Highever, noting that her son was suffering greatly from the tragedy, and had serious case of survivor's guilt.

Her son.

Which meant Malcolm's mother was still alive.

And so was his.

Letter in hand, temper writhing under his skin, he strode swiftly out of his room, intent on finding his brother and getting the whole truth out of him.


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42**

**Malcolm**

"I've been meaning to ask," said Malcolm as he walked back into his room after getting a long-needed bath and finding Morrigan reading by the fire, "now that Flemeth is dead, what will you do?"

Morrigan tapped her long fingers against the open page of the book on her lap. Gunnar watched her expectantly, as if her thoughts were her deciding if she was going to give him a treat or not. "Find a way to prevent her from stealing my body in the future."

He raised an eyebrow.

She smiled at his unspoken question. "Flemeth will be back one day. I have no doubt of that. And if I cannot protect myself, one day I will track her down again in whatever body she inhabits... and she will die again. And again, if need be. But there is no need to think of such things now. I have you to thank for saving me."

"I will always protect you," he said. And meant it, even if it meant getting eaten by dragons.

Her brows drew together as they tended to do when she was caught by surprise by sentiment. Those moments when someone expressed caring or concern or love when she had never expected to hear it. "I..." she stumbled over her words. "You should not be so... you have no idea what will happen in the days to come, to make such promises. There is much to be done before... there is still much to be done."

Before he could address whatever she meant by _that_, the door opened and Alistair burst in, waving a piece of paper clutched tightly in his fist.

"What is this?" he shouted.

"A letter?" Malcolm offered. Then he caught the look in his brother's amber eyes and saw the mixture of hope and hurt and fury roiling there. And it struck him—_he knows_.

Alistair let the letter go when he was in front of Malcolm and it fluttered to the floor beneath their feet. Morrigan shut the book she held, tucked it under her shoulder, and quickly exited the room during the silence that stood between the two brothers. Malcolm noted her departure and wished he could go with her. He hadn't thought this confrontation would happen already. Not this soon. Not here. And not this way. He thought he'd be the one to tell him, however reluctantly and however late he thought it would've been in their lives. Instead, he'd found out somehow on his own. "Where did you get that?"

"What? You thought Morrigan had burned them all?" Alistair's tone sang with sarcasm.

"I had hoped so," Malcolm replied.

Alistair's mouth hung partway open, apparently not having expected such honesty, and for a moment, having no idea what to say to it. "Our mother is alive! Why would you not tell me that?" His voice had yet to diminish in volume since his first appearance in Malcolm's room.

Malcolm held up his hands in caution. "You should probably keep your voice down."

Alistair blinked at him. "I should what? You want me to keep my voice down?" Instead of getting quieter, he got louder. Yes, Malcolm realized, his brother was now officially the most pissed he'd ever seen him. "No one should know that our mother is—"

Malcolm acted. The revelation of their mother being alive and all the other information that would appear along with it had to be kept secret, no matter what the cost. He closed the distance between them and put his hand over Alistair's mouth. "Be quiet. We can talk about this, but we have to talk quietly. You're putting everything in danger—"

His brother reached out with both his hands and pushed him away. Malcolm stumbled backward toward the fireplace, barely keeping his footing and out of the fire. Alistair watched him, his body settling into a defensive pose, as if waiting for Malcolm to launch a counter-attack. But Malcolm had no inclination to do so. His brother was furious and he had every right to be. The most he would do was defend himself if Alistair pressed his attack further, but he'd do no more than that. He did wonder if this was what Alistair must've felt like months ago, when Malcolm had tried to pick a fight with him and failed miserably. Alistair advanced on him and Malcolm circled around, staying out of his brother's considerable reach. Both of them were fast despite their size, months of near-continuous combat had seen to that. "The only thing in danger right now is you for keeping this from me. What gives you the right to decide if I can know about our mother? That she's—"

"Shut up!" Malcolm started to realize that a fight might be the only way to keep his brother from shouting that their mother was still alive. He didn't know how much sound would carry through the doors and the rooms and Maker forbid if Anora heard. If she did, it would be over. Neither of them could claim the throne and Anora would be confirmed as regnant queen and Loghain probably as her general, which in this case, really meant regent and he would rule. He would continue to rule with his insanely stupid iron fist and not end this civil war. He would continue to ignore the Blight, he and Alistair would be executed, their friends and companions would either be executed or imprisoned. Morrigan, she would probably be sent to the Circle Tower and made Tranquil. And there would be no Grey Wardens left to kill the archdemon, and the Blight would cover all of Ferelden, and then begin its attack on the rest of Thedas.

So Malcolm leapt and tackled his brother to keep him from doing something incredibly stupid. They fell back against the long sofa, flipping over it and onto the stone floor behind it. Malcolm's sword clattered from the table to the ground. He realized that there was one good thing about the fight: neither of them were armed or armored, meaning the risk of serious damage was significantly lower than usual. Fists flew and Malcolm grabbed at them to keep them from connecting. But he couldn't catch all of them and some connected. He kept his muscles tense to absorb the blows and didn't throw any punches back. One fist caught him upside the head, sending his vision spinning and dropping one of his protective hands. Alistair took the advantage and landed a blow on the opposite side of his temple, making the room reel sideways. Malcolm struggled to his feet, trying to keep his balance and open up the distance between himself and his brother before more damage was done. Alistair stood up quickly and fluidly, advancing, pressing his advantage.

The door burst open and three people ran through, a shouting Riordan and Eamon, and a frowning Wynne. Riordan went for Alistair, throwing him bodily against the wall with surprising strength, and then standing in front of him to keep him from moving forward. Alistair glared at him, nostrils flaring in anger at being stopped. "I am ordering you to speak either quietly or in a normal tone of voice," Riordan told Alistair. "Or not speak at all. It's your choice. Wynne will petrify you if she has to in order to keep you quiet." His order that Alistair stop trying to kill his brother went unsaid.

Alistair shot a shocked, questioning glance at Wynne, who nodded her agreement with Riordan's statement. The questioning turned into betrayal, that these people whom he looked up to would do something like this to him. Malcolm hurt with him, even as he knew he was one of the people Alistair thought betrayed him. "Will you answer my questions?" Alistair asked, his tone finally having come down in volume to normal.

"Yes," Riordan replied, stepping away.

The fire crackled in the silence.

"What's going on?" Eamon asked, picking up the forgotten letter from the floor. His eyes skimmed over it, but registered nothing since it was in cipher.

Riordan turned to Malcolm and motioned for him to help right the sofa. As they did so, Alistair said, "Our mother is alive. Malcolm knew and never told me."

"Our mother?" the arl repeated.

Malcolm shook his head a bit, trying to get the ringing in his ears to stop. He instantly regretted it, having made it worse. "We have the same mother, Eamon. I don't know what Maric told you about Alistair's real mother, but his mother is the same as mine."

"And she's alive," Alistair added, firing a glare at his brother before looking back to Eamon. "And a Grey Warden."

"Let me just finish it for you," Malcolm said, not bothering trying to confirm approval with Riordan or the approaching Wynne, who had apparently noticed his discomfort. "She is also Orlesian, a mage, and an elf."

Eamon blinked at the revelation as Alistair stared at Malcolm. Wynne put her fingers to Malcolm's temples and healed whatever damage the blows to his head had done. "You shouldn't have been fighting," she quietly said to him.

"It was the only way to shut him up," Malcolm replied as quietly.

"If this gets out..." Eamon started, his eyes widening with fear at what could happen.

"It would mean the end," Malcolm finished for him. "Anora would rule in name, Loghain would rule in reality, and we would be executed."

"Which is why you kept it a secret," said Alistair, realization lighting in his eyes.

Wynne walked over to Alistair to check on his well being. "At my insistence."

"Why?" Alistair asked.

"For your own good." Wynne placed her hand on Alistair's temple and he fingers glowed with a soft, white light.

"Where did you get the letter?" Eamon asked.

"Zevran gave it to me. He got it from Arl Howe's rooms at the estate. He—" His eyes went wide. "Arl Howe might know. Maker, he might know and he's probably already told Loghain."

"They're in the Grey Warden cipher," Riordan reminded him. "That explains why Howe was trying to get the cipher out of me when I was his... guest. And he didn't get it from me, in case you're wondering. I have every confidence in the code. But your shouting, Alistair, could have done as much damage. If Anora had heard, or any number of servants, there would be no way to keep that information to ourselves."

Alistair studied Riordan for a moment, and then said, "You knew."

The senior Warden nodded slowly. "Yes. I found a letter in Duncan's papers at Ostagar, one half-written, from Duncan to Fiona. I kept it and burned it as soon as I could, knowing the consequences if such information had gotten out."

Alistair's gaze moved to his brother. "And those were all those papers you were burning? Letters between Duncan and Fiona?"

"Yes."

"And you kept the knowledge from me. Why?"

Malcolm sighed, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Because I didn't want you to have to lie if someone asked you about our mother."

"You realize you'll have to do that now, right?" Eamon asked Alistair. "It's what's best for Ferelden. This country needs a strong ruler of the Theirin bloodline, and that's you, whether you like it or not, no matter who your mother happens to be. We're lucky enough, it seems, that neither of you are mages and that both of you appear human."

"They _are_ human," said Wynne. "The children of humans and elves are human."

"I want to meet her," Alistair said.

Eamon cast him a sad look. "You can't."

"What? Why not?"

"Because it's too dangerous. You can't write her, either. You can't have any contact whatsoever with your mother. Ever." Though Eamon's words were harsh, they were said with a great deal of sympathy. The arl didn't wish to keep Alistair from meeting his mother, but he had to. Malcolm understood the feeling.

He also felt horrible about the entire thing. He'd been lucky enough to grow up with parents, as Maric had informed him when he'd appeared to both of them. He knew what it was like to have a mother. Alistair didn't, and here Alistair had found out his own was alive, the prospect of a mother dangled in his face, and then quickly taken away, forever just barely out of reach. One that thing he so desperately wanted—a parent's love—was never to be his. All due to the circumstances of his birth and the duty forced on him by his birthright. Never before had Malcolm wanted this badly to say sod it all about the throne and the Blight and do what he wanted instead of what must be done. He hated seeing his brother like this, knowing he was one of the people who'd helped make Alistair this upset. This hurt.

But the Blight had to be stopped. Ferelden had to be saved. Thedas had to be saved.

"I'm sorry," said Eamon. "Truly, I am."

"I suppose you're right," Alistair said in a soft, pained voice. "If you will excuse me, I'd like to be alone for a while." Then he shared a look with each of them and left the room.

The three of them exchanged looks, but there was nothing more to say. Dinner would also be soon, and they couldn't all be absent. It would be too conspicuous. They filed out of the room, Malcolm last. As he went to close the door behind them, he noticed that Morrigan had been waiting outside. Eamon had also noticed and had started questioning her. "How much did you hear?"

Morrigan, knowing Eamon had no liking toward her at all, gave him a detached gaze in reply to his question, not moving from where she stood with the wall behind her.

"Answer me," Eamon said, the stress from the confrontation before making his voice sound threatening.

Alarmed, more at what Morrigan might do were she to lose her temper with Eamon, Malcolm put a hand on the arl's shoulder. "Leave her alone, Eamon. She already knows."

Eamon's ire turned to Malcolm. "You told her? What were you thinking?"

"That I trusted her. And I still do."

The flush of anger rose in Eamon's cheeks. "You trust this... this—"

"Don't," said Malcolm, interrupting Eamon before he said something that would anger both he and Morrigan. "Don't even go there, because then our agreement would be over."

Eamon leaned in closer to Malcolm. "You are blinded. You are blinded by whatever you feel for her and that puts you in danger. I will say nothing more on the matter, but it would do you well to keep that blindness in mind." Then he moved past Malcolm and continued down the hallway toward the dining room. Malcolm watched him go, more curious than angry, because Eamon's voice had lacked the anger he'd expected. If anything, the voice had sounded sad or sympathetic. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Your agreement?" Morrigan said from behind him, a hint of amusement in her voice.

"I said I'd stop telling him to kick Isolde out of his household and he said he's stop trying to get me to leave you," he told her.

"Perhaps you should consider the fact that he might be right."

He spun and stared at her in shock.

"I am a danger to your plans," she replied. "Surely your Landsmeet would not approve of me. There are many who can barely tolerate my existence."

"I don't care."

"You cared enough to risk your brother's wrath by not telling him about your mother."

"That's different. It affected both him and me. Not just me. I'm not the one who will be put on the throne, so I don't care what the Landsmeet thinks of me or my life or anything about it. So stop doing this."

She arched a brow. "Doing what?"

He closed the distance between them, pressed her to the wall, and kissed her for all he was worth. "Trying to drive me away," he said when he pulled back. "It won't work." Then he turned and strode down the corridor towards the dining hall.

Alistair was, as they had assumed, conspicuously absent from the evening meal. Morrigan had followed Malcolm down the hall after a few seconds of surprised staring and they sat together at the far end of the table, well away from Isolde. He brushed off the inevitable questions about the shouting from earlier, only saying that they were brothers and sometimes they fought. Líadan was the only one who refused to accept that answer, as she was the only one present who'd yet to witness the two brothers in a fistfight. Eventually, Fergus, who'd joined them for dinner, informed her that yes, brothers sometimes fought for reasons known only to them, that she'd get no further answer because no other answer made sense. With a huff and a glare, Líadan let the matter go. Fergus leaned over to Malcolm a little later and informed him that he, however, wasn't falling for that crap, and that his little brother would be telling him what happened in the near future or there would be a serious beatdown. Then he'd laughed at the shocked expression on Malcolm's face and told him, "I've recovered enough physically to take you once more. Don't you start thinking you can overpower me."

"I wouldn't dare think such a thing," Malcolm replied around a bite of bread.

Near the end of the meal, Eamon stopped by Malcolm's seat and reminded him that he and Alistair still needed to speak with Anora. And afterward, he wanted to meet with both of them, as well as Fergus and Teagan, to discuss the next day's impending Landsmeet. Malcolm didn't look forward to it, for it would make the tasks ahead even more real than they already were. With a sigh, Malcolm rose from his chair and left the dining hall, the night already turning later than he liked and without a single non-stressful task ahead of him.

Fergus followed him out, and after making sure no one followed them and no guards or servants were nearby, asked, "So what was the argument about?"

Malcolm sighed again, even more heavily this time. "Alistair found out that our natural mother is still alive."

"Alive? Are you serious?" His eyes narrowed. "Wait, how is that a bad thing?"

He pulled his brother quickly into his room and shut the door. "Because she's a Grey Warden, Orlesian, a mage, and an elf." And he was tired of uttering that sentence over and over, that much was certain.

Fergus let out a low whistle. "That... would be bad, yes. I can see that now."

"Anyway, he was pissed that I'd known and hadn't told him and more pissed that I kept telling him to shut up and stop shouting because we didn't need people like Anora knowing. Because then, you know, we'd be executed and all that. And that would be unfortunate."

"And what is it that Eamon wants you to discuss with Anora?"

Malcolm shrugged. "Beats me. I suppose to make sure she doesn't hate us or something. But we're trying to steal her throne, so the dislike is understandable. I don't know. He wants me to play nice."

Fergus let out a sudden burst of laughter. "That'll be the day."

"Hey, I can be perfectly polite when I have to."

"Of course you can. You just never think that you have to, which drove Mother to all sorts of crazy when it came to your behavior."

Malcolm moved to the door, opened it, and stepped through into the hallway. "Whatever. I need to go find Alistair, make sure he doesn't want me dead, and then go talk to Anora with him."

"Have fun with that, little brother," said Fergus. "I'll see you in Eamon's study later."

After steeling himself for a confrontation, Malcolm went in search of his other elder brother. His room was empty, so he searched the manor methodically, the library, the kitchens, other hallways, the armory, sparring room, even the dungeons. Finally he was left checking the battlements and found Alistair sitting in a far corner, back leaning up against a parapet, and staring at the night sky. It was a new moon, so even more stars than usual shined brilliantly against the black Ferelden sky.

"Stars are still unsullied," Malcolm said quietly as he approached his brother.

"That they are," Alistair replied. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he said, "I'm not mad at you. I mean, I was, but I'm not anymore. You were in a hard place, I understand that now. I just... it was the chance to have a mother, you know? And as quickly as I discovered it, it was taken away."

"I know."

Alistair looked up at him, his eyes heavy with impending responsibility. "I take it you came to find me for some sort of meeting?"

"We need to go talk to Anora."

"I'd rather talk with Isolde."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow.

Alistair smiled. "Okay, she isn't _that_ bad."

Malcolm gave his brother a hand up and they climbed off the battlements and walked towards Anora's room. Once they were at the door, they had a brief argument about who would do the knocking, when a guard, apparently frustrated with their reticence, knocked on the door himself and announced that she had two guests. Anora opened her door, looking very well collected, not a single golden hair out of place. She motioned them inside, and then offered them seats. They each awkwardly sat on an end of the sofa, while Anora sat in an armchair across from them. "Are you were to discuss the terms of my surrender?" she asked.

"Your what?" said Malcolm.

"No," said Alistair, already more prepared than his brother. "We just had some questions."

Malcolm shot Alistair a look asking him 'we did?' but said nothing out loud to him.

Anora sighed and folded her hands in her lap. "Ask me whatever you like."

Then Malcolm found that he did have a question. Loghain had been a near faceless enemy this entire time. He certainly hadn't acted like the Loghain he'd read about as a child, the Loghain his parents told him about when they fought in the Rebellion. "Help us understand your father," he said.

This time it was Alistair shooting Malcolm a surprised look. Anora also looked surprised, but then she nodded and said, "Well, he was once a farmer when he was a boy, if you could believe it. I never could, myself. He's useless with plants, for one thing. I remember my mother once asking his help with a sick rose vine. My mother oversaw the rose gardens personally. He touched it—no more than that—and it shed half its leaves like a dog with mange. She never asked for him to help her with the roses again. He bought her another one, though. He carried it back from Denerim with the branches overflowing his saddlebag. Despite the thorns tearing him bloody, he wouldn't let anyone else take it. He wanted to be the one to present it to her. My father has his faults, but he is far from common."

"I never thought your father common, Anora," said Malcolm. "He's probably the most uncommon person I know, and I've met a lot of uncommon people. I mean, I hang around with a golem."

"And an assassin," Alistair added, "a witch, a couple mages, a constantly drunken dwarf—"

"She gets the point," Malcolm said, cutting him off. Loghain presented one of the most complicated personalities he'd ever encountered. The man made no sense. Nothing of what the man had done within the past year made any sense when paired with everything he'd done previous to Ostagar. Something had changed, something had happened, but he'd be damned if he knew what. "Did he plan on overthrowing Cailan before Ostagar?"

"I am not sure. I had no inkling of my father's plans until Cailan was already dead. I would like to think my father planned for the worst but did not truly decide that Cailan was a lost cause until that moment in Ostagar. The alternative is... difficult to imagine." There'd been a hitching in her voice before she'd said the last bit, and both Malcolm and Alistair noticed. Malcolm almost felt bad. Actually, no, he did feel a bit bad.

"Why doesn't Loghain back down?" Alistair asked, his mind now following the same track as his brother's.

"Because he believes he is right," Anora immediately answered. "He thinks he is the only one who can see Ferelden out of its current crisis, even if it is the one he helped engineer. My father is capable of remarkable blindness, but it stems from his love for Ferelden. That is the saddest part of all, I think."

"And you think you're the one who can see Ferelden out of this crisis, I assume? And not anyone else?"

Anora looked levelly at Alistair. "Yes."

Alistair scowled. "When you say that, you become your father's daughter, you know. People like you and your father always think you're the only ones who can fix things, so everyone should just stay out of your way."

"Don't you believe the same?" Anora shot back. "Don't you believe that you're the only one who can fix things now?"

"Certainly not." Alistair motioned toward Malcolm. "He could do it, if need be. I'm sure if Maric has any other children running around, they could probably do it, too. And if King Maric had been your father, then I'm sure you could be the one to do it. The people out in the Bannorn, though, they think it has to be me. They think it _will_ be me, and I have to live with their belief. And I have to fulfill it. We've been out there, Anora, saving them. Gathering armies. Fighting for them, not against them. Despite everything your father has done to hunt us down and eliminate us for being Grey Wardens and Maric's sons, we're still alive. And despite our youth, we've accomplished much, and people see that. We have to unite this country so it doesn't get obliterated by the darkspawn, which is a reality that your father won't attend to. And you can tell me whatever you like about what you'd do were you queen and truly in power, but I wouldn't believe you because of your inaction over this past year."

Alistair's answer seemed to mollify Anora and she declined to continue that particular line of argument. Malcolm was impressed by his brother's answer, though he'd be the first to argue that he certainly could not do what his brother was going to have to do. But it wasn't an argument to have in front of Anora, that much was certain. Seeing that Alistair had nothing else to say for the moment, Malcolm asked the queen a question that had plagued him for quite a while. "Why would your father trust Arl Howe?"

"I'm sorry for what Howe did. I know your family and Eleanor, in particular, was dear to me," she said. When Malcolm didn't reply, she continued, "Trust would perhaps be putting it too strongly. My father knew what Howe was. And while I despised the man, I knew that Father relied on his political mind. I expect my father thought himself above being influenced by the snake. Truly, I wonder how many of these acts stemmed from Howe and not my father at all. We may never know."

If Loghain was so terribly influenced by Howe and hadn't objected to any of Howe's despicable acts, it seemed he was beyond recovering. "Why did he leave Cailan to die?" Alistair asked.

Pain crossed Anora's face, either at the memory of Cailan and his death, or her father's betrayal, or everything that had occurred in the past months, Malcolm wasn't sure. "Cailan was so _idealistic_," she said. "The world was a storybook, and he was the hero. My father was different. He's an idealist, too, but... he knows what idealism costs. They often clashed, but never seriously. Never for long. Cailan would always come around to Father's way of thinking eventually. And then the Blight came... Cailan dreamed of uniting all the nations of Thedas against the darkspawn. It was a dream he wouldn't surrender. What my father saw, however, was the boy he had swaddled inviting Orlesian troops back into the land he had fought to free of them. And for once, my poor, foolish husband wouldn't back down."

To his surprise, Malcolm heard himself speak up in his dead half-brother's defense, saying, "Cailan wanted to wait, you know. His plan was to wait for the reinforcements from Orlais. There were two hundred Grey Wardens with four divisions of Chevaliers as support troops waiting on the other side of the border. And the Chevaliers were under the command of the Grey Wardens, not the Empress, mind you. Four divisions. That's over sixty thousand men. It would have meant retreating from Ostagar first and establishing a new defensive position, but the pivotal battle could have been won easily. Instead, your father wouldn't wait. He came up with the strategy that still could have won the day if he hadn't quit the field. And he quit the field _before_ Cailan and Duncan and the Wardens were overrun. Yes, Cailan had his faults. Yes, Cailan thought too much on glory, but he wasn't stupid, and I know you know that. But he was too excited about finally surpassing his father in renown. Maric, being Maric the Savior, cast a big shadow. Couple that with his father-in-law being the Hero of River Dane, and it seemed a shadow he would never escape. Between his want of escape, and your father's hatred of Orlais, everything was doomed."

"But it doesn't excuse Loghain's behavior," said Alistair. "Anora, he _quit the field_. We saw Cailan die, crushed to death in an ogre's fist, all while we were too far away to do anything. It could have been stopped. Those actions alone make him a traitor. But what he's done since? This civil war? Hunting down the remaining Grey Wardens when history has said and proven time and time again that the Wardens are the only people who can stop Blights? He may hold Ferelden as beloved in his heart, but he is a traitor to his country. And a traitor to his daughter for killing her husband." He tilted his head to the side, as if seeing Anora in a new way. "You loved him didn't you? Cailan, I mean."

"Yes," she replied softly. "I loved him. It seems a strange word to describe a marriage our parents arranged when he was newly born and I still in swaddling clothes. But, yes, I loved him. He was reckless, impetuous, and charming. Had he not been king, he would have made a dashing rogue for a band of players. We were a good pairing. He would not have wanted the burden of ruling any more than I would have liked remaining the silent wife in my husband's shadow."

"And your father took him away from you," said Malcolm.

She said nothing, merely cast her eyes towards her hands.

"What I propose is this," Alistair said after giving Anora a moment to regain her emotional control. "We will have the Landsmeet declare me king. Malcolm will be named heir presumptive. However, the two of us are Grey Wardens, first and foremost. And there's a Blight to stop. We've armies to command, allies to summon, and an archdemon to kill. If we fall fighting the Blight, I want you to take the throne."

Anora looked at Alistair sharply in surprise. "Once, I would have said that statement would be uncharacteristically wise of you. Now... I'm starting to see you are much more wise than you let on."

"I've noticed that, too," said Malcolm.

"I will expect you to sign and seal a statement agreeing to my terms before we go to the Landsmeet tomorrow," Alistair continued. "I cannot yet trust you farther than I could throw you, even still."

The queen nodded. "I cannot blame you for that."

Malcolm grinned. "Though I think you could throw her pretty far if you tried, Alistair. Maybe even farther than you could Oghren."

Anora gave Malcolm a curious look before turning to Alistair. "Is he always like this?"

Alistair sighed. "Usually. And much to Eamon's dismay."

"He reminds me of King Maric when he does that. When I was a little girl, sometimes I heard Maric teasing my father, whenever he was trying to make him smile. Maric was really the only one who could break through that wall of my father's."

"You don't have to talk about me like I'm not sitting right here, you know," said Malcolm.

"At any rate, I will sign this statement of yours, Alistair," said Anora, standing up, Malcolm and Alistair also getting to their feet. "The two of you have convinced me, despite your doubts that I remain convinced, and my doubts about your abilities, that my taking the throne is not the best course of action. Now if you would excuse me, I would like to get some sleep. We've a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

Alistair nodded. "That we do." Then he and Malcolm wished the queen a good night and left the room.

"That went shockingly well," said Malcolm as they walked towards Eamon's study.

"And you were shockingly well behaved," Alistair replied.

They arrived at Eamon's office to find they were the last ones there. Fergus and Teagan were already sitting in the two chairs in front of Eamon's desk, and Eamon had settled himself in his desk chair. "You spent all this time talking to Anora?" Eamon asked when he noticed them walk in.

"Yes," said Alistair, and then he explained the deal he'd struck with Anora. "Though," he finished, "it remains to be seen if she'll actually follow through with it. She could just change her mind in the middle of everything and demand that we be executed. I figured a bit of paper signed and sealed would help some."

"Good job," Eamon replied. "While you were negotiating the throne, the rest of us have tallied who we have on our side, that we know of for certain, for the Landsmeet." He named the nobles, ticking them off on his fingers as he did. "Obviously, Teyrn Cousland of Highever. Then we have myself, Arl Wulff of West Hill, the Arl of South Reach, Bann Sighard of Dragon's Peak, the Bann of Lothering, the Bann of Rainesfere, Bann Alfstanna of the Waking Sea, the Bann of West Hills, and the Bann of Oswin. We're still unsure about the Bann of White River, but we shall see. I don't see Bann Ceorlic ever being on our side, as King Maric executed his father years ago. Fergus's vote will influence a lot of people since the Teyrnir of Highever is second only to the throne. In fact," he looked over at Fergus, "your father almost ended up being king when the Landsmeet considered not confirming Cailan as king after Maric died."

Fergus laughed and looked over at Malcolm. "Could you imagine Father as king?"

Malcolm shared in the laugh. "No more than I could imagine you being the king. You'd never keep a straight face."

"You'd be no better," said Alistair.

"Hmm," said Teagan, stroking his goatee. "On second thought, I'm not so sure about my vote."

Eamon shot his younger brother a particularly scathing glare.

"Oh, come on, brother, you've seen how much these two are really scamps," he said, unable to keep a smile from his face. "Can you imagine court? Especially if Malcolm is there pulling faces behind Alistair?"

"I would never pull faces at court," Malcolm said. "Whisper sarcastic comments, maybe, but not pull faces where others could see them."

Alistair crossed his arms and nodded. "You see, Teagan, he'll behave."

"Maybe if you tie him up and gag him, he might," said Fergus.

Malcolm smacked him on the back of his head and Fergus grinned.

"Maker's breath, what have I gotten myself into?" muttered Eamon, and then he stood up. "I'm going to bed, and I suggest the rest of you do the same. The Landsmeet will start an hour after the morning meal. We'll meet here and walk there together with a considerable number of guards, just in case."

The meeting broke up and each of them headed to their rooms, their responsibilities heavy on each of their minds. Tomorrow, the face of Ferelden would change forever, and the mechanism of that change was in their hands.


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

**Malcolm**

_Dark whispers carried through the sickly air as the horde moved, their faces grinning with oversized teeth, bloodlust running through tainted veins. A corrupted high dragon, the archdemon, winged over the teeming horde, its opaque white eyes surveying its minions with pride. Then it noticed the ones listening in, the strangers, the intruders, those who would seek to kill it. Those who wrongly assumed they could. But they were its slaves as much as the darkspawn, they responded to its song through the taint in their own veins. It flicked its tail and twisted its flight and faced them, mouth open, roaring, spitting purple flames into their faces. It sent them their visions, sent them their dreams, sent them their nightmares._

_ And they saw what the archdemon wished them to see._

_ Oghren saw Branka laughing as a member of her own House became a broodmother._

_ Líadan saw Tamlen snarling and leaping, teeth savaging at her throat, ripping it apart._

_ Zevran saw Rinna, wonderfully alive, only to be turned into a writhing, screaming ghoul._

_ Malcolm saw Morrigan taken from him, kept at arm's length so he could not help her but made him watch as her eyes lost all humanity and she became a shrieking, monstrous broodmother._

_ Alistair saw himself killing Leliana over and over again, reliving the moment when the taint had won her over._

_ Riordan saw each of the young Wardens fall to the darkspawn, young lives taken and wasted, trampled under the feet of ogres and hurlocks, as the archdemon sang above them all._

_ Sang to them all of its impending arrival._

_ And the death of the world._

Malcolm sat up straight in his bed, skin clammy from the cold sweat left from his dream. His breath came in gasps, eyes wide in the darkness, searching for light, something that wasn't the night he'd seen in his dream. Panic squeezed at his lungs, tugged at the periphery of his mind, his heart thrummed in his chest, and he started to become frantic for some sort of light. The fire had gone out in the fireplace, not even the embers glowed. He swung his legs out off the edge of the bed, trying to remember where his pack was in the pitch black room, where the glowstone would be.

Then a warm hand grasped his wrist and a light crackled to life from a mage's staff leaning against the wall, chasing the darkness from the room. His breathing slowed, the panic waned, and he brought his legs back onto the bed. The warm hand moved from his wrist to his chest as he lay back down. "You have not dreamed like that for some time," the hand's owner said softly.

He'd forgotten how real it seemed. "They took you and turned you into a broodmother. They made me watch and I couldn't do anything to stop it." Tears stung at his eyes and he willed them to stop because he wouldn't grant the archdemon that much power over him. He would never break his promise to her that he would protect her, even if, in the end, it meant killing her.

"I know you would not allow that to happen."

He closed his eyes and hoped it would be so, that he would not be so powerless that he could do nothing but soft lips were on his and he met them eagerly, a way out of the darkness. A warm body rolled onto his and, together, they drove the nightmare away.

The next time he woke up, the bleak morning sun streamed through the glass panes of the single window in the room. Morrigan had gone while he slept, he figured up to whatever witch things she did when not around him. He went through his morning ablutions quickly, dressing in his dwarven heavy chainmail, slinging on his sword and shield, unwilling to go unarmed and unarmored to the Landsmeet. Not when Loghain and Howe seemed to have every intention of seeing his head rolling along the chamber's polished floor. He found Alistair and Riordan in one of the small dining areas off the kitchens, demolishing breakfast with the normal Grey Warden gusto. A look at their eyes told him they'd suffered through the same sort of nightmares he had last night. Fergus came into the room soon after, carrying his own plate of food. For the first time since they'd found him, he was dressed in Highever livery instead of Redcliffe, ready to spring his identity on the Landsmeet. The Highever shield and the Cousland sword were strapped to his back as well, proclaiming his allegiance and preparation for a fight if one arose.

One by one the others dropped into the room. More plans were made. As discussed the night before, Eamon, Alistair, Malcolm, and Teagan would walk to the Landsmeet together and stand in the same section—on the main floor. Gunnar would be allowed to remain at Malcolm's side. After all, this was Ferelden, and Gunnar was a beloved mabari. Anora would wait outside with Fergus until summoned. The rest of the group would be spread throughout the room in pairs, armed and ready in case something untoward happened. The Redcliffe soldiers they'd brought with them to Denerim were placed on high alert, runners given pre-determined messages and assignments should anything go wrong. As Malcolm and Alistair stood in the fresh, early-morning air outside the arl's estate, Malcolm found himself remembering a tidbit from one of Brother Aldous's history lessons and chuckled.

"You seriously found something to laugh at already?" Alistair asked.

"I just remembered something I learned as a child in my lessons. One of our ancestors, Queen Fionne, wrote something about the Bannorn in the Steel Age, just after her coronation. Apparently, the banns had fought three wars with each other over elopements, five over wool, and one started by an apple tree, and that was before winter even started. And here we are this morning, about to go to another Landsmeet in order to appoint a king, and we're all armed to the teeth."

"Yes, you're laughing at a randomly remembered history lesson and I can barely keep my breakfast down. How can you be so calm?"

Malcolm grinned at him. "I'm not the one about to be made king."

"I hate you."

"Cheer up. We could end up screwing ourselves over and being executed instead. Then you wouldn't have to be king."

"You're really horrible at pep talks, you know."

"This is supposed to be a pep talk?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Malcolm tilted his head to the side in thought. "You know, we could go with a tried and true berserker technique. Here, I'll kick you in the stones, and it'll make you so mad that you'll forget you're nervous."

Alistair took a step away from his brother. "That is not a tried and true berserker technique. I heard Oghren when you talked to him. That was a single instance of the only way to make an individual dwarf go berserk."

"Fine, don't listen to my ideas. I tried. You just keep trying not to puke all over your shoes."

"Don't tell me you're starting already," said Eamon, walking out the front door and apparently having caught part of their conversation.

"No, don't worry, you haven't missed Alistair vomiting yet," Malcolm said with a great deal of glee. Alistair narrowed his eyes at him, having not missed the gleeful tone.

"Tell me that you will behave today in the Landsmeet," the arl said, fixing a level glare on Malcolm.

Malcolm gave Eamon a steady look of his own. "I will behave today at the Landsmeet. I'm just... getting everything out of my system right now and hoping nothing else comes up in the meantime." When Eamon's eyes took on a despairing look, Malcolm took pity on the older man. "Don't worry, Eamon. I really will behave. I can be serious when I absolutely have to, you know. And I'm thinking the Landsmeet will require that."

"Or," said Teagan, stepping out into the yard, "his behavior will just remind the Landsmeet of Maric and help seal the deal for Alistair."

"That does little to make me feel better," replied Eamon.

"Weren't you just talking about how resemblance is a good thing the other night? I seem to recall that coming up in conversation," said Alistair.

"Don't remind me," Eamon said, and then sighed. "Fergus will be accompanying Anora to the Landsmeet shorty after we depart, so it's safe for us to go now." Then he motioned the rest of them forward, and they started their long walk through the city to the Royal Palace and its Landsmeet chamber. Which, if Malcolm recalled correctly, was also the throne room. Funny how that worked.

He wished Fergus could've walked with them. Fergus had been to a Landsmeet before and he hadn't, so Fergus knew what to expect. And he would feel a lot better asking Fergus questions than Eamon. Though, he supposed he could ask Teagan. The bann reminded him a lot of his Cousland brother, while Eamon just reminded him of... authority.

"I take it you've been to one of these before?" Alistair asked him quietly.

"One of what before? A walk? Yes." And suddenly, Malcolm found himself getting nervous. Facing darkspawn seemed easier at this point. Maybe even those giant thaig crawlers. His palms started to sweat under his gauntlets.

"No, a Landsmeet, you idiot. You were raised as a noble, right? And don't nobles go to these things?"

Malcolm slid a glance over at Alistair. "The older brothers do. I stayed at home and got up to no good."

"So... you don't have any idea what you're doing, either?"

"Not a clue. Well, maybe a little clue. All the banns and arls will be there, shouting from the main floor and the galleries. Since Eamon called the Landsmeet, it will be his job to run it. Protocol will be a bit messed up because Howe will be insisting he's the Teyrn of Highever and Fergus or I will be pounding his face in."

"No, you will not," Eamon called back to them.

Malcolm narrowed his eyes in the arl's direction. "Your hearing is a lot better than you let on," he said. "Fine. We'll just be thinking about beating the crap out of him instead of directly doing so. How's that?"

"Better."

"Anyway," Malcolm said to Alistair, "I imagine Loghain will be doing a lot of yelling and glowering right back at the Bannorn. Oh, and yelling and glowering at us, but we expected that. What it will come down to is calling for a vote amongst the banns and arls, and people will state who they stand with, Loghain or you. Whoever has the majority gets the throne, and the loser ends up in Fort Drakon and an appointment with the executioner."

"So I'll come out of this thing either the king or dead?"

"Pretty much, yes."

Alistair rubbed at the back of his neck. "I'm not sure which outcome is better."

In front of them, Eamon let out a weary sigh.

They finished the walk in silence, as Malcolm had no other advice to give, and his nervousness closed in over anything else constructive he might've said. And he'd promised Eamon that he would behave. He knew himself well enough to know that with how apprehensive he was getting, his tact would be rapidly dissolving into nothingness, leaving nothing but irreverent, acerbic commentary in its wake. Must better to remain quiet and speak only when spoken to, or when particularly inspired to do so in a very serious manner. Scowling Royal Guards let them into the Palace grounds. Soon enough, they found themselves standing in front of the large double wooden doors of the Landsmeet chamber.

Alistair studied the doors like they carried some sort of horrible plague.

"Last chance to cut and run," Malcolm said.

A smile tweaked the corner of Alistair's mouth before seriousness overtook his face. "I think that time is long past," he replied, sounding, Malcolm thought, rather regal.

Then the doors opened and they walked inside. The room seemed smaller than Malcolm had imagined, though it probably had to do with the number of people packed inside. Both the ground floor and the galleries above were full, banns and those who had accompanied them milling about as they waited for the Landsmeet to begin. Loghain stood at the end of the room nearest the throne, glowering as Malcolm had predicted, and flanked by several of his personal guards. "I see Loghain took the same precautions as we did," Malcolm whispered to Alistair.

"I guess coming to this thing wearing fancy, shiny armor wasn't such a bad idea after all," Alistair replied, his eyes following Eamon as the arl walked toward the front of the room. Alistair frowned and asked Teagan, "Where's he going?"

Teagan nodded his head toward a balcony near the middle of the room. "The person who called the Landsmeet has to officiate from up there. Why? Did you think he was going to abandon you?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," Alistair replied.

Malcolm started to notice more than a few double and triple-takes come their way and a blush started rising from his neck to his cheeks. He didn't see a single bann or arl he knew well. Wait, no. Howe had entered through another door, and now walked toward Loghain, Ser Cauthrien keeping step beside him. Meanwhile, Eamon had found his place on the balcony. The arl placed his hands on the railing in front of him. The other banns and arls took note of his appearance and the murmuring of the crowd stopped, waiting for Eamon to start.

And start, he did, his face in a determined set, his voice carrying out to every corner of the large hall. "My lords and ladies of the Landsmeet. Teyrn Loghain would have us give up our freedoms, our traditions, out of fear. He placed us on this path, yet we should place our destiny in his hands? Must we sacrifice everything good about our nation to save it?"

Loghain immediately started a slow, condescending clap. "A fine performance, Eamon. But no one here is taken in by it. You would attempt to put a puppet on the throne and every soul here knows it. The better question is who will pull the strings? Would it be you, Eamon?" Without waiting for an answer, Loghain moved his attention from the arl to Alistair and Malcolm. "Or will Alistair just be taking direct orders from Orlais? Tell us, Alistair, how will the Orlesians take our nation from us? Will they deign to send their troops or simply issue commands through you and Malcolm, a would-be king and your brother, a would-be prince?"

"The Blight is the threat here," Alistair answered, his voice ringing even more strongly than Eamon's had. "Not Orlais. And it's time Ferelden had a ruler that pays attention to it."

"Don't mention anything about what he did at Ostagar," Malcolm whispered to his brother as he started to get the feelings from the crowd around them. "They won't believe you over him. Not yet, anyway, I don't think. Best not risk it."

Alistair gave him a short, discreet nod.

From the gallery above them, one of the arls shouted in agreement. "First my arling was overrun by refugees, and then by darkspawn. Despite the stand the bastard princes took at Honnleath, the south has fallen, Loghain. Do not think that the Bannorn didn't notice the absence of you and your soldiers, men and women who could have turned the tide of the battle at Honnleath. Will you let darkspawn take the whole country for fear of Orlais?"

"The Blight is indeed real, Wulff," Loghain replied. "But do we need Grey Wardens to fight it? They claim that they alone can end the Blight, yet they failed spectacularly against the darkspawn at Ostagar. And they asked to bring with them four legions of Chevaliers. And once we open up our borders to the Chevaliers, can we really expect them to simply return from whence they came?"

Malcolm tensed, wanting to speak up, and he felt Alistair tensing next to him.

"Failed spectacularly? The Grey Wardens, was it?" Bann Sighard shouted from the gallery, curbing anything either Alistair or Malcolm might've said in their defense. "My son heard a very different story from an Ostagar survivor, Loghain, and he tells the same story others have heard from Ostagar survivors. He heard that it was you who quit the field before the king's and the Wardens' positions were overrun. That you ignored a critical signal and abandoned your king and the Grey Wardens to die. If anyone should be called for failing spectacularly, it should be you, Loghain."

Bann Alfstanna stepped forward. "And how is it that you expected fifty Grey Wardens to defeat an entire horde, Loghain? You blocked their call for reinforcements, and you yourself failed to provide support during a pivotal battle recently. For the past year, you have ignored the darkspawn encroachments and terrorized your own people." She pointed at Alistair and Malcolm. "Meanwhile, these two young men, barely more than boys, both bastard princes and Grey Wardens, have called our allies in the dwarves and the Dalish and formed an army in order to stop the darkspawn. Already, they have engaged in battles against the Blight while you sit here in the palace and do nothing."

"Oh, no, he does something," another bann yelled. "He sends out assassins to kill Arl Eamon and destroy his arling. He sends out assassins to capture and kill any remaining Grey Wardens in Ferelden. He sent out an assassin in order to kill Maric's two remaining sons."

"That was the Bann of White River," Teagan whispered. "I guess he was on our side after all."

The doors at the back of the room opened. "He also sent Arl Howe and his troops to wipe out the entire Cousland line while the Highever troops fought the darkspawn in the south at Ostagar," Fergus said, walking through the door, a glower on his face to match Loghain's. "Howe's troops murdered my mother, my father, my wife, and my son while I fought darkspawn. They killed an innocent little boy in his sleep simply because he was a Cousland. They would have killed Malcolm if Duncan, the Grey Warden Commander who died at Ostagar, had not helped him get away."

"Is this true, Howe?" a bann shouted, his hands gripping the gallery's railing so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Howe sputtered for a moment, and then said, "The Couslands were traitors and died traitors deaths! They conspired with Orlais! Just look at their younger son now, pretending to be a bastard son of Maric, all while planning on taking the country to give to Orlais!"

"Pretending to be?" came a question from Bann Alfstanna. "Have you looked at him or Alistair, Rendon? There had been rumors of Alistair for some time, but now that I've seen Malcolm, I'm surprised rumors of his parentage didn't surface sooner. You blindness is clearly willful. _And_ you attempt to name Bryce and Eleanor traitors? They fought at Maric's side during the Rebellion and apparently have helped raise one of his sons. Do you seriously think that maintaining diplomatic ties with another country constitutes being a traitor? Should we begin pulling our sons and daughters squiring in other countries home so that we, too, are not murdered in our beds?" She turned to Fergus. "I assume you wish to charge him with these crimes? Because if you do not, I will. Bryce and Eleanor were friends to us all."

"I formally ask that Rendon Howe be charged with the murders of every person who died in Highever Castle, not just my family, but the servants and guests as well. Bann Loren's wife and son were among them," Fergus said, sounding remarkably calm.

More gasps sounded from the crowd.

Eamon signaled for Redcliffe soldiers to move in and arrest Howe.

"I will not stand for this!" Howe protested as the soldiers walked toward him.

"Yes, you will, Rendon," Eamon said. "You are not the Teyrn of Highever. Fergus Cousland is."

Shouts of agreement followed from the gathered nobles.

The soldiers took custody of Howe and led him out of the Landsmeet chamber. Loghain watched the proceedings impassively, giving no indication of whether or not he would try and help Howe later, if he could.

"And you allied yourself with that snake, Loghain?" Arl Wulff asked.

"He also allowed Fereldan citizens into slavery," Alistair said, when Loghain didn't bother answering Wulff.

"There's no slavery in Ferelden! We are no Tevinters!" a bann shouted, his face quickly turning red with anger.

"The Arl of South Reach," Teagan whispered. "His wife once barely escaped the hands of Tevinter slavers in Nevarra."

Loghain gave a heavy sigh, as if he were speaking with small, rather stupid children. "There is no saving the alienage. Damage from the riots has yet to be repaired. There are still bodies rotting in their homes. It is not a place I would send my worst enemy. There is not a chance of holding it if the Blight comes here. Desp—"

"The Blight would not come here if you had done something to stop it, Loghain!" Wulff yelled, also red with anger. Other nobles joined him in shouting denunciations at Loghain and his failure to act.

"Enough!" Loghain roared, sweeping his arms across his body to motion the Landsmeet to silence. Then he turned to Malcolm and Alistair. "What have you done with my daughter?"

Malcolm blinked. "What are you talking about? You should be asking Rendon Howe about—"

Loghain stepped forward menacingly, pointing a finger at Malcolm. "_You_ took my daughter! Does she even still live?"

As soon as Loghain acted aggressively, the chamber echoed with the sounds of swords being loosened in scabbards. Malcolm had to will himself to relax and not draw right there in case the man truly thought he'd kidnapped his daughter against her will and it wasn't all a ploy. The doors at the back of the hall swung open again, this time to admit Anora.

"I believe I can speak for myself," she announced, calmly and clearly.

Though Eamon had the signed and sealed paper on him, Malcolm still wasn't sure what Anora would do. Would she continue to pressure for power? Would she accuse them of kidnapping and Maker knows what else to secure the throne for herself? Or was there a good person somewhere in there who loved Ferelden and would understand that Alistair taking the throne was for the good of all?

Anora nodded in their direction before turning and opening her arms to the rest of the nobles gathered in the hall. "Lords and ladies of Ferelden, hear me. My father is no longer the man you know. This man is not the Hero of River Dane. This man turned his troops aside and refused to protect your king as he fought bravely against the darkspawn. This man seized Cailan's throne before he was cold and locked me away so I could not reveal his treachery. I would have already been killed it not for Prince Alistair, Prince Malcolm, and the Grey Wardens."

Malcolm had to fight to keep his jaw from falling open. Never had he expected Anora to openly and willingly acknowledge that he and Alistair were princes. Certainly not like this, and certainly not within a ringing endorsement. Politically, it was a brilliant move for their benefit. The widowed queen of the past king using the title of prince in reference to her bastard brothers-in-law? When he hoped Anora would go along with their plan as asked, he'd merely hoped she wouldn't hinder them. This was practically a gift from the Maker if it held nothing devious within it, waiting to be sprung.

"So," said Loghain, over the murmuring of the crowd as they found themselves as surprised at Anora's acknowledgement as Malcolm had been, "the bastard princes' influences have poisoned even your mind, Anora." Briefly, the older man looked straight into his daughter's eyes, and pitched his voice just a bit lower. "I wanted to protect you from this." Then, without waiting for a response, he returned to the Bannorn. "My lords and ladies, our land has been threatened before, it's been invaded and lost and won times beyond counting. We Fereldans have proven that we will never truly be conquered so long as we are united. We must not let ourselves be divided now. Stand with me and we shall defeat even the Blight itself!"

"Just like you stood with Cailan, Loghain?" Alfstanna said. "I think not. The Waking Sea stands with the princes."

"Wasn't it King Calenhad, the ancestors of these two young men who united our lands?" Wulff asked. "West Hill stands with the princes."

"Howe stood with you and killed my family while he did," Fergus said. "Malcolm was raised as my brother, and Alistair is as much a brother to me as he is. I know both of these men and I've seen what they can do. They've already battled the horde at Honnleath, ending in victory, despite the few numbers of troops they had at their disposal. They understand history, and they understand that every Blight has needed the Grey Wardens to end it. Not only that, but they understand that the Grey Wardens never stand alone. They stand with the people and soldiers of every country, they gather together allies, unite the people of Thedas, and rid the land of darkspawn. They understand the true threat to Ferelden and all of Thedas. Highever stands with the princes."

Then Fergus flashed his brother a grin, eyes bright in vindication.

Malcolm smiled back, wishing his nephew, his sister-in-law, his mother and father could have seen Fergus just now. They would have been very proud. He certainly was.

More banns and arls announced their backing of Alistair and Malcolm. Then Bann Ceorlic, a man whose father, Malcolm remembered, had helped murder Queen Moira, Maric's father, shouted, "I stand with Loghain. These bastards are no princes." His statement met with outraged shouts, while the other banns continued to cast their allegiance with the princes.

Then the last bann spoke, his lot with Alistair and Malcolm, and the furor died down. Arl Eamon waited a few moments, and then said, "The Landsmeet is against you, Loghain. Step down gracefully."

"Fat chance, that," Malcolm muttered.

"You're lucky my brother didn't hear that," Teagan whispered, "or he'd have you out on your ear."

"Traitors!" Loghain said, his face darkened with more rage than even Malcolm had expected from the man. He was truly offended that the Landsmeet had voted against him. "Which of you stood against the Orlesian emperor when his troops flattened your fields and raped your wives?"

"Bryce and Eleanor Cousland did," Alfstanna shouted back, "and your ally killed them both in their own home!"

Loghain ignored her and turned to Eamon. "You fought with us once, Eamon. You cared about this land once. Before you got too old and fat and content to even see what you risk. None of you deserve a say in what happens here. None of you have spilled blood for this land the way I have. How dare you judge me?" As Loghain finished, his troops present in the hall drew their weapons.

And then everyone had weapons drawn, bows creaked as they drew nocked arrows and swords rang as they were pulled from their scabbards. Malcolm imagined both Wynne and Morrigan, somewhere in the crowd, held staffs crackling with magic. Somehow, his own sword had appeared in his hand and he didn't even remember drawing it.

Only two people in the hall, that he could see, had yet to draw weapons—Alistair and Loghain. Alistair stepped forward, away from where he'd stood with Malcolm and Teagan. "Call off your men. There's no need to waste more people fighting amongst ourselves while the darkspawn wait on our doorstep. The Landsmeet has voted against you." Alistair looked at the soldiers at Loghain's side. "I would ask the men of the Teyrnir of Gwaren to stand down, lest they become traitors themselves. Teyrn Loghain is named a deserter and traitor for his deeds at Ostagar and in instigating this civil war while the Blight bears down on our country. He will be arrested and brought to Fort Drakon to await his execution at dawn tomorrow with Rendon Howe. May the Maker have mercy on your soul, Loghain, because I won't."

Loghain settled a cold, appraising stare on Alistair before he said, "So. There is some of Maric in you after all. Good."

"Forget Maric," Alistair replied, his level tone finally betrayed by some of the bitterness he felt towards the teyrn. "Your execution is for Duncan. For Cailan. For all the Grey Wardens and all the men and women of Ferelden whom you deserted on the battlefield that day. For all the men and women of every Blighted village and town who have died in the past year because you left them to the mercy of the darkspawn." Alistair motioned toward the waiting Redcliffe soldiers. "Take him away."

Surprisingly, Loghain went without struggle or further protest. He strode out of the Landsmeet chamber with his shoulders set and his head held high. Every eye followed his departure, some filled with sadness, some disappointment, others with fury, and others still with respect, even from some of those who'd voted against him. The heavy wooden doors shut with a final thud.

After a moment, Eamon said, "So it is decided. Alistair will take his father's throne."

Alistair gave a small bow. "I accept this decision. I will be king, if the Landsmeet will allow it."

"They kind of already did," Malcolm pointed out, not taking into consideration the hush that'd fallen on the crowd.

A crowd which, on hearing his statement, had chuckles run through it, a welcome break in all the tension from the previous hour.

"You're in for it now," Teagan whispered to Malcolm. "Eamon heard that. Everyone did. And you were doing so well before."

Eamon raised an annoyed eyebrow at Malcolm before turning to Anora and saying, "Anora, as your father has been named a traitor, you become the Teyrna of Gwaren, and with Alistair's succession, the dowager Queen of Ferelden, no longer a regnant queen of Ferelden. As such, you must now swear fealty to our king, and relinquish all claim to the throne for yourself and your heirs."

For a second, Malcolm thought Anora would refuse. He saw the thought pass through her eyes, but then saw as she remembered what she'd promised. So she nodded to Eamon and swore fealty to Alistair, who stood awkwardly for a moment before accepting it.

Eamon turned to the Landsmeet again. "As we have recognized Alistair as King and his father Maric's heir, I ask that Malcolm, as Maric's son and Alistair's brother, be recognized as a Prince of Ferelden, and heir presumptive."

To Malcolm's dismay, the crowd readily agreed and shouted their approval.

"I don't envy you, little brother," Fergus said quietly.

"I hate you," Malcolm replied, making sure to keep his voice down this time.

Except a bann near them, one other than Teagan, heard the exchange and snorted in laughter.

"Then I declare Malcolm to be a Prince of Ferelden and heir presumptive," Alistair said, a gleeful smile on his face.

"But I hate him more," Malcolm said.

Fergus smothered a laugh behind his hand.

"Malcolm and I are still Grey Wardens," Alistair said, "and our duty is not only to Ferelden, but to stopping the Blight. I declare today, and have written agreement, that if Malcolm and I both fall to the darkspawn, Anora will be named to the throne to ensure stability to our country, for we will surely need it after a Blight."

Anora bowed slightly at the acknowledgement.

Alistair continued, "Lords and ladies of the Landsmeet. I never knew him, but from all I've heard of my father, what defined him was his commitment to protecting this land. I share the same commitment. Everyone, get ready to march. It's going to take all of Ferelden's strength to survive this Blight. Tomorrow, after the executions, my brother and I, along with the Grey Wardens and what troops we have with us in Denerim, will depart for Redcliffe. Our intelligence shows that the horde is heading in that direction, and we intend to stop them. But we will face it and we will defeat it!"

Cheers reverberated through the hall.

Eamon formally concluded the Landsmeet, noting that due to the pressing matters of the Blight, a coronation would take place after the threat of the darkspawn had been dealt with. Then banns and arls sought out Alistair and Malcolm, starting what turned out to be hours of conversation and politics and everything they both had dreaded in the months before the formal declaration of Alistair's kingship. Eventually, Fergus, Teagan, Eamon, and their other companions managed to chase people away, noting that there were preparations to be made for tomorrow's march, and that, and Malcolm was sure he heard Wynne say it, "those poor boys need to eat."

They couldn't say much on their walk back to the estate, as the word had spread quickly, and the citizens of the city crowded around them, trying to get a glimpse of the man who'd just been declared their king. Alistair had finally started blushing, and Malcolm knew he didn't look much better. They finally arrived back at the arl's estate and happily settled into eating the arl out of house and home in his dining hall. As Malcolm tucked into the welcome meal, he heard Eamon say, "Malcolm."

Slowly, and with great trepidation, Malcolm looked up from his food and at the arl. He knew that tone of voice. His father had had that same tone and he was going to get lectured and he _knew_ it. And he couldn't even argue with it because he deserved it. Despite his promises otherwise, he hadn't entirely held his tongue during the Landsmeet. "Yes?" he finally asked, thankful that he hadn't squeaked.

"I really should lecture you. But..." he sighed and finally smiled. "You mostly behaved yourself. I saw laughter a few times near you, but none of the banns were displeased. And the timing of your one overheard-by-everyone comment was... fortuitous. Some of the banns even mentioned that your comment reminded them of Maric in a good way. So I suppose my brother was right. Just try not to do it again. My heart can't take the stress." Then he looked at Alistair. "You did well today. For a moment, I had thought you would demand a duel and Loghain's immediate execution at your hands on the Landsmeet floor. But you acted with more maturity than I had once thought and meted out justice the way a monarch would. You're off to a very good start as king." With that, the arl walked away.

"I really did want to kill him right there," Alistair said to Malcolm. "He's the man that murdered Duncan. But then I realized that it wasn't just Duncan he'd killed—he'd killed Cailan and everyone else who had depended on him at Ostagar. And that meant that the families of those who died deserved the chance to see his execution. So I couldn't just do it myself, not then. But... I really, really wanted to."

"I know."

And he did. Howe had been there most of the time, and he'd had to keep reminding himself to stay his hand. That Howe would get justice and meet his end all in due time. And he and Fergus weren't the only ones who wanted Howe to die for his crimes. There were all the loved ones of everyone who'd died in the castle that night. They, too, deserved to see Howe meet his end.

And end that would be at dawn tomorrow.

Malcolm had no intention of being late.


	44. Chapter 44

_A/N: Resubbed due to a glaring continuity error caught by Eva Galana. My thanks for the heads-up. And while I'm adding a rare A/N, I also wanted to thank all who've reviewed, alerted, etc. When I started posting on in another fandom, there wasn't a reply-to-review option. As I'm somewhat shy, I've only just recently starting replying to reviews. So if I've seemed stand-offish or rude as a result, my apologies, for I am actually thankful of your feedback. For the curious, in the previous iteration of this chapter, Riordan said there were only three Wardens in Ferelden instead of the six in this particular story._

_

* * *

_

"And as the black clouds came upon them,

They looked on what pride had wrought,

And despaired."

—_Canticle of Threnodies 7:10_

**Chapter 44**

**Alistair**

"You made me king," Alistair told his brother as they sat in Arl Eamon's study, taking advantage of his vast collection of maps to form some sort of battle plan. They were also constantly seeing messengers carrying notifications of how many troops various arls and banns had at their disposal. Alistair had even taken over Eamon's desk in the effort.

Malcolm blinked at the sudden accusation. "Technically, the Landsmeet did that."

"Yes, as you pointed out to me in front of all of them. Nice one. I thought Eamon was going to have kittens when you said that."

"Just looking out for you." Malcolm accepted a sealed paper from another messenger, who quickly left the office after several bows.

As Malcolm quietly broke the seal and read the letter, Alistair watched the door after the young messenger had left. "What was that about? He looked all freaked out and nervous."

"He did technically just bring a message to the king." Malcolm then waved the message at him. "It's from Anora. She was letting us know that she has five thousand Gwaren troops available for us whenever we need them."

"That gives us..." Alistair glanced down at the tallies he had written on the paper below him. "A lot. We could break fifty thousand. Wow." He ran his finger down the list of banns and arls and troops at the ready. "At this point, the only noble who hasn't sent word of how many troops he has and when they'll be ready to march is Bann Ceorlic."

"We should probably execute him."

"I... what?" Alistair wasn't sure if it was the notion of executing a bann or how casually his brother said it that caught him off guard. "Are you suggesting we execute him for not sending troops?"

"No, not really. And I don't really want to execute him, but he could be a serious problem later. Maybe. I don't know. Zevran would know. Let's ask him later when everyone else gets here for the grand meet up with all the darkspawn and kill then strategy session." He sighed and slumped in his chair. "This sucks. Why did we do this?"

"If I remember correctly, there was a Blight involved. And still involved, actually." Glib as he was, Alistair felt the same way as his brother. And just as tired, by the looks of him. He hadn't slept well the night before. He'd assumed he wouldn't due to nerves, but he'd ended up falling asleep readily enough. In the end, he'd wished he hadn't. The nightmares had been worse than they had in a long time. Much, much more personal than ever before and that made him want to shove a sword down the archdemon's throat even more than ever. "I'll have Zevran do some quick investigating about Bann Ceorlic's actions in the past year and see if we can connect him with Howe and Loghain and go from there. We don't want to act like Loghain and just execute anyone who mildly irritates us."

"Good thing Eamon isn't like that either or we'd be long dead," Malcolm replied.

"You before me."

"From what I've seen," Morrigan said as she walked through the door, "that much is certainly true."

Malcolm gave her a lopsided grin. "Your unending support means ever so much to me."

The witch seated herself by the crackling fire. "As well it should."

Alistair grinned cheerfully at Morrigan. "So, you've heard, I hope? You were paying attention at the Landsmeet? How I'm going to be king? With a crown and everything?"

Morrigan lifted an elegant eyebrow, and the side of her mouth tugged just a little in amusement. "Proud of yourself, are you?"

"Well, they don't just let anyone be king, you know. They don't let evil forest witches be king, for instance." Once, Alistair had thought her a cruel, evil bitch and hated these word games with her. Now, they could be just plain fun, especially when they drove Malcolm to exasperation.

Morrigan furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "You know, there was once a Fereldan king who drooled on himself in such volume that he required a constant attendant to wipe his chin in court."

Malcolm snorted.

Alistair scowled at the witch. "You're making that up."

She lifted her hands as if to illustrate her innocence. "Not at all. The kings of old would be pleased to see their bloodline has not strayed very far from its roots."

"You shouldn't have started with her," Malcolm said. "She always gets you."

"Always gets who?" asked Riordan as he strode into the room and sat down in front of the desk.

"Morrigan always ends up burning Alistair," said Malcolm.

"I heard that you're the one who's always on fire, Malcolm," Riordan replied.

"Oh, ouch." Malcolm narrowed his eyes at the senior Warden. "You're still mad about me laughing at you in the Arl of Denerim's dungeon, aren't you?"

Riordan raised his eyebrows in mock innocence. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Before Malcolm could reply and the banter spiraling completely out of control, Alistair asked Riordan, "Where are the others?"

"They will be along shortly. I have something to ask you," Riordan answered, his tone becoming serious and the good humor falling away from his eyes.

Alistair frowned. "This sounds bad. I'm not going to like this, am I?"

The senior Warden sighed. "This is about Loghain, so no, probably not. Instead of executing him tomorrow, there is another option I want you to consider." Before Alistair could ask, Riordan barreled on with his explanation. "The teyrn is a warrior and general of renown. Let him be of use. Let him go through the Joining."

On hearing Riordan's recommendation, Alistair's blood went cold. Then hot. Then cold again, like his body couldn't decide between which kind of angry to be. He forced himself to act civil because he was a mature adult and a king and that's how those sorts of people were supposed to act. "I really don't like that idea."

"There are too few of us. It's not a matter of what we like. It's a matter of what we must do. There are six of us in all of Ferelden and there are," Riordan's eyes drifted slightly to Morrigan's direction and he looked to amend something he was going to say, "compelling reasons to have as many of us on hand as possible to deal with the archdemon."

Briefly, Alistair wondered what Riordan had censored himself from saying because of Morrigan's presence, but didn't bother asking. He also didn't bother to point out that whatever Grey Warden secret Riordan thought he might be protecting, Morrigan probably already knew about it. He'd suspected for a while that Morrigan knew more about being a Grey Warden than all of the newer Wardens combined. But right now, he wanted to find out how and when Riordan had clearly lost his mind. "Riordan, this man abandoned our brothers and then blamed us for the deed. He hunted us down like animals. He _tortured_ you. How could we simply forget that? Joining the Wardens is an honor, not a punishment."

"I don't know," Malcolm said. "I felt pretty punished when I was forced to become one. Not everyone wants to be a Grey Warden, Alistair. Not everyone sees the Wardens like you do."

Alistair snapped his head around to look at his brother, who had also clearly lost his mind. "You aren't seriously considering this, are you?"

Malcolm raised his hands as if fending off an attack. "That's not what I said. I was just pointing out that joining the Grey Wardens isn't always an honor for everyone. For Andraste's sake, I tried to run away once and thought about it plenty of other times. I didn't speak to the man who recruited me for a solid week. It wasn't an honor for me to join. It was a burden."

"And now?" Alistair asked the question quietly, afraid of the answer.

"And now I'm fine with it. I've grown into it, so to speak. But people are brought into the Grey Wardens in many different ways. If you asked Líadan, she'd give you a different story. She certainly didn't see joining as an honor. Then if you go to Zevran or Oghren, they probably would think it an honor, or at least a noble purpose." Malcolm squinted, as if remembering something, and turned to Riordan. "Back when I got kicked out of Arl Eamon's castle, before I'd taken my Joining and after I'd already tried to run once, Duncan found me outside. He told me that had he been given the opportunity to run that I'd just been given when he was my age and in my situation, he'd have taken it. I know Duncan was a conscript, too. How did he end up being a Grey Warden?"

Alistair looked away from his brother and towards Riordan. Duncan's conscription into the Grey Wardens had been something of a curiosity to him since Malcolm had mentioned it. He'd always thought Duncan the quintessential Grey Warden, especially seeing as how Duncan was the Warden Commander and all. Just learning that Duncan had been a conscript had been surprising enough. He'd figured the older man had been a volunteer.

Riordan gave a short nod. "I know that both of you know that Duncan was a cutpurse on the streets of Val Royeaux before he became a Grey Warden." When they both nodded, he continued, "Duncan had gotten a tip about a new guest at an inn and went to rob the man's room. The man returned while Duncan was still in the room and tried to get back the ring Duncan had stolen. Duncan wouldn't give up the ring, and the man wouldn't give up the fight. In the end, Duncan ended up killing him. While the man was dying, he thanked Duncan for killing him, which disturbed Duncan enough that he didn't run away soon enough and the city guard caught him. Later, he found out that the man he'd killed had been a Grey Warden. The day before he was to be executed, the dead man's commander offered Duncan a place with the Grey Wardens. Duncan refused because he didn't want to be in an order where you thank someone for killing you. The Warden Commander left after Duncan said no, but the next day, she used the Right of Conscription on him before he could be executed."

Alistair sat back in his chair, unable to reconcile the story with the Duncan he'd known. He'd barely been able to believe Duncan had been a thief in his youth. But this was far beyond even that. A murderer, killing a man over a piece of jewelry that could be fenced for a small amount of coin and nothing more. Killing a Grey Warden, no less. Then he thought about how much he himself had changed just over the past year, and how much Malcolm had changed as well. They were both very different men than the ones who had been at Ostagar. Seeing how Líadan had acted towards Malcolm, thinking that Malcolm had been a calm, cool, and collected Grey Warden had been surprising as well. He'd never really perceived his brother that way and he doubted Malcolm did, either. But Líadan had met the man Malcolm had become and not the boy who'd been forced into the Grey Wardens practically at swordpoint. Perhaps it had been that way for Duncan as well. Like them, Duncan had obviously grown up a lot and found a place for himself within the Order.

So Alistair understood. He knew why Malcolm had asked Riordan to talk about Duncan. He saw why Riordan wanted Loghain to be recruited. Then he wondered why Riordan had asked him at all. "Why haven't you just used the Right of Conscription? You're the Senior Warden in Ferelden right now."

"I suspect it would be impolitic at this time," Riordan replied, a hint of his humor back. Then, just as quickly, he became somber once again. "Our duty is to slay the archdemon. We aren't judges. Kinslayers, blood mages, traitors, rebels, Carta thugs, common bandits. Anyone with the skill and mettle to take up the sword against the darkspawn is welcome among us. We take and use what resources we can get. Loghain is a potential resource that must be carefully considered before it is wasted."

"I understand why you want to conscript him," Alistair said. "I do. But this man is a traitor, not only to Ferelden, but to the Grey Wardens as well. We need him like we need to be stabbed in the back. Not only that, but were we to leave Loghain alive, even as a Grey Warden, it would be a threat to the throne. It would keep the political situation unstable. People would forget, soon enough, about Loghain's actions at Ostagar and his inaction against the darkspawn. They'd start to question who they want to follow. Their confidence in me and my brother would erode as they remembered less of the newer Loghain and more of the old Loghain, the war hero from history. I realize that my judgement is clouded by the want for revenge. But if I had truly wanted vengeance, I would have taken it on the Landsmeet floor. I could have killed him right there, but I didn't. His actions have caused a lot of deaths and a lot of heartache in those left alive. Ferelden needs justice and that's why I chose a public execution. It's more than just my own needs here, it's the people of Ferelden, too. For us to conscript him would rob them of that justice."

Riordan rubbed at the scruff on his cheeks as he mulled over what Alistair's logic. "I understand what you're saying," he finally said. "And I will not force the issue. Looking at it from your point of view, it would indeed destabilize what you and Malcolm have accomplished in this past year. Which, I do remember, I ordered you to do."

"You aren't mad?" Alistair asked.

Riordan smiled. "Of course not. While it would have been nice to have once extra Warden around, it wouldn't be worth the price paid. As important as Grey Wardens are to defeating a Blight, armies are needed to hold off the darkspawn so that Grey Wardens can focus on the archdemon."

Relief flooded through Alistair. He'd been afraid Riordan would've pushed the issue enough to invoke the Right of Conscription. And Alistair truly had no idea what he would've done had that been the case. To accept Loghain as a brother in the Order? To stand next to him? He would've been tempted to walk away, that much was certain. Maybe even kick the Grey Wardens out of Ferelden after the Blight if they managed to end it. Or perhaps he would've just accepted it as something that needed to be done. But no, even though part of him wanted the vengeance of Loghain's death tomorrow, the execution was more for the people of Ferelden than for him. For everyone who had to continue living with the losses Loghain had inflicted. And for the security of the Ferelden throne so they could turn their attention to the Blight. Then again, he hadn't had a huge hissy fit in a long time. Maybe he deserved one. He'd just have to wait for the right time. Probably after the Blight, like everything else remotely fun.

The rest of the Grey Warden party gathered in the study and they commenced discussing battle plans. More darkspawn had been sighed south and east of Redcliffe, which wasn't surprising considering the size of the group they'd fought at Honnleath. Alistair couldn't help but think of the size of the horde they'd seen in the Deep Roads, the what looked to have been hundreds of thousands of darkspawn in the Dead Trenches, filing slowly but surely to exit the Deep Roads in southern Ferelden. He also remembered the moment when the archdemon had flown by and Zevran had tensed, as if he was going to jump. To what purpose, Alistair wasn't sure. Maybe Zevran had taking a liking to riding dragons judging from his last time on one. The grin on the elf's face had been rather large. But riding the archdemon didn't seem productive. He didn't think they could actually kill it in one blow to the head, even if Zevran hadn't been shaken off and sent to his death, falling into the depths of the Dead Trenches. Good thing Malcolm had stopped him from jumping.

"What?" asked Zevran.

Apparently, while he'd been reminiscing, his eyes had drifted towards the Antivan. "Nothing, I was just thinking."

"Of me? That's so sweet, Alistair. If you would like to see me naked, all you must do is ask. Surely you know this by now?"

Even though he'd suffered Zevran's teasing for months, Alistair immediately felt a flush jump to his cheeks.

On seeing Alistair's blush, Zevran turned triumphantly to Oghren. The dwarf scowled and said, "Hmph. Fine. So I owe you a flagon. Bastard."

Zevran inclined his head. "Much obliged, ser."

Malcolm glanced over at Oghren. "You made a bet about that? Really? You've seen how often Zevran has made Alistair blush. How could you bet against it?"

"To be fair, I was drunk at the time."

"You're always drunk at the time."

"_And_," Oghren continued, "I thought kings didn't blush. King Endrin certainly never blushed.'

"That's because he's old, like Riordan. _Old_ people don't blush," Malcolm said, ignoring the outraged glare from the senior Warden fixed on the back of his head.

"When Riordan decides to do something mean to get even with you, Malcolm, you'd best not expect me to protect you," Morrigan said from her place by the fire.

"It's fine, I won't need your protection," Malcolm replied.

Alistair glanced over at Riordan and noticed the mischievous glint in the man's eye. "Oh, I think you'll need the protection," Alistair told his brother. Then he brought the meeting back to business. "So we're in agreement that the horde is marching in the direction of Redcliffe and we need to get us there quickly?"

Riordan nodded. "Though I would like to double check this assumption as we haven't seen the bulk of the horde since the Deep Roads. Tomorrow morning, I will set out scouting south of the West Road, in the Southron Hills and the Hinterlands while the rest of you stay on the West Road to Redcliffe with the troops we've brought with us to Denerim. I will bring Zevran and Líadan with me and meet you in Redcliffe. Depending on what we encounter, we'll either beat you there or arrive shortly after you do."

"Is it a race?" Oghren asked.

"No," Riordan replied. "Not with your riding skill, anyway. Unless you wish to make it so."

"There isn't exactly a ready supply of horses underground. And it's not my fault you humans and elves have unnaturally long legs."

Oghren's comment brought back another memory to Alistair, this time of when Oghren had discovered his relationship with Leliana, and had inquired about where he put the bard's legs. While Alistair had stammered around for an answer, Leliana had laughed merrily, the kind of laugh that made his embarrassment worth it to hear that sort of happiness. The blush came to his face again, his mind agreeing to dispense with the sadness in favor of the happiness his discomfort apparently brought others.

"What are you blushing about now?" Oghren asked.

"Nothing," was Alistair's quick reply.

"You were thinking about her legs!" the dwarf crowed, and then laughed. "She would have liked that, I think. She was a good woman, and I believe she'd be sodding proud of you right now."

Of all the people to bring up Leliana and her feelings about Alistair and the kingship, Alistair hadn't expected Oghren to do it. The dwarf noticed far more than he let on. He'd have to pay more attention to him and his observations from now on, he realized. "Um, thank you?"

"Ha! Made you blush even more." Oghren turned to Riordan. "I take it that's probably all for tonight? I believe this lad needs an ale or two. Yes! At least two. One for a memory, one for celebration... and then many more in celebration."

Riordan nodded. "Yes. Zevran, Líadan, meet me at the stables with your gear at sunup if I don't see you for breakfast. Be as rested as you can, as we've got a lot of ground to cover."

After the two elves had nodded their assent, the group got to their feet and shuffled out the door. At Oghren's pointed look, Alistair sighed and stood, ready to follow the dwarf to whatever ale-filled plans he had for him. Better than giving into melancholy over Leliana or the Blight or anything else he had to be melancholy about. Oghren proposed the Gnawed Noble for their ale supported celebrations and everyone agreed. Most of the others opted to come out with them. Only Shale, claiming no need to cavort with squishy creatures as they fall into drunken stupors, and Riordan, explaining that the nightmares had been especially bad for him the night before, and needing the sleep, chose not to go.

As the rest of the group started towards the gates, Alistair quickly dropped back to speak with Riordan, a frown forming on his face. "Duncan had been getting the nightmares again," he said to the senior Warden. "Before Ostagar, he'd told me that if he wasn't killed in this Blight, he'd be going to Deep Roads soon after."

"Duncan and I had our Joining together. It is the same for me with the nightmares. It is why I can so easily hear the archdemon, that much is certain."

Alistair felt the urge to change the subject and flee, the same as when Duncan had brought it up at Ostagar a year ago. But he'd changed since then and now he stood his ground and stuffed the urge away, behind his determination. "I'm sorry."

Riordan smiled warmly. "It's not how you die that's important, lad. It's how you live."

"Duncan once told me that, after he'd told me about the taint's death sentence."

"Did he? He stole that line from me." Riordan chuckled. "You go celebrate or torture yourself, depending on how much ale you let that dwarf put into you. I'm off to sleep. Have a good night."

Alistair watched him stride away for a bit before running to catch up with the others. He discovered Malcolm arguing with three of the Redcliffe guards at the main doors, with the rest of their party glowering at the guards behind him. "What do you mean, I can't go out?"

"Arl Eamon's order, my lord," the guard replied, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else other than arguing with Malcolm. Alistair didn't blame him. As many fights as he and his brother got into, he didn't much like arguing with him, either. "You and King Alistair are not to go out without a full contingent of guards and there haven't even been any Royal Guards appointed yet. And we also have to go and determine the safety of any place that you'd be visiting, anyway, even if we let you out."

"You can't be serious," Malcolm said, and then he turned to Alistair, who'd caught up with him. "I think he's serious."

Alistair looked at the guard. "Are you? Serious, I mean."

"We're charged with your safety, your Majesty," the guard replied. "All of us guards, even though we aren't Royal Guards. And Teyrn Fergus said he'd personally give me a black eye or worse if I let either of you out of the estate."

"I'll kill him," Malcolm muttered.

Alistair frowned. "Eamon or Fergus?"

Malcolm threw his hands in the air. "Both!"

"You go on without us," Alistair told the others. "Somehow I don't think this argument is going to be resolved tonight. Being king is starting to be way less fun than I even thought before, and I didn't think that was possible."

"No point in going if we can't get you good and soused," Oghren grumbled.

The rest apparently agreeing with him, the group dispersed, heading for bed instead of carousing good fun. With a heavy sigh, and plans to confront Eamon and Fergus in the morning regarding this whole 'not allowed out of the estate' thing, Alistair decided on sleep himself. After letting a servant know he wished to be awakened an hour before dawn, he collapsed into bed. This morning he'd woken up a commoner, and now he went to bed as a king. What a strange day, he thought, and promptly fell asleep.

The knock from the servant came too soon, and a chill had taken over the room in the night when the fire had died down. When he dropped into the kitchens and the smaller dining area downstairs, he found the rest of the group already up. Riordan, Zevran, and Líadan said their goodbyes and left the estate for Redcliffe. Somehow, Alistair wasn't surprised Riordan hadn't stayed for the executions, though Zevran had seemed a bit miffed over it. Then Alistair remembered that Zevran had been close to the Cousland family, and wished Riordan had let him stay. But, as they all knew, and as Zevran even admitted, the Blight was more important than seeing vengeance met. Alistair and Malcolm needed to stay and watch and the people of Denerim who would attend the execution needed to see them there, or they would have left just as early.

When Arl Eamon made his appearance, Malcolm immediately lit into him. "Eamon!" he shouted, making the arl jump at the sudden, loud greeting. Alistair decided he wouldn't intervene until absolutely necessary. This could be entertaining.

"Is there a reason why you're yelling at me this early in the morning?" Eamon asked.

"I just wanted to know why Alistair and I have effectively been grounded," Malcolm replied.

"Grounded?" repeated Eamon.

"Yes, grounded," said Malcolm. "You know, not allowed to leave the castle grounds. At least, that's how my parents always grounded me. Though, they usually had a reason to ground me. And normally a good reason at that. Plenty of times. I'm well versed in the grounding process and I'm quite sure about what a grounding looks like. Obviously Connor never needed to be grounded or you'd know exactly what I was talking about."

"You're talking about not being allowed to leave the estate without a full contingent of guards?"

"Yes!"

Eamon sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, a reaction that Alistair noticed a lot of their elders tended to have with him and Malcolm. "Whether you like it or not, and whether you fully admit it or not, you and Alistair are royalty now. As such, you can't just cavort off to wherever you want whenever you want."

"Even just a tavern like the Gnawed Noble?"

"Especially taverns."

"Taverns?" came a question from Fergus at the doorway. "This early?"

Malcolm pointed at the teyrn. "You!"

Seemingly nonplussed, Fergus fetched a plate of food. "Me, what?"

"He's complaining about the restriction to estate grounds without full guard," Eamon told Fergus. "Rather loudly, in fact."

Fergus shot a glance in the direction of his younger brother. "He _is_ rather loud this morning, isn't he? Usually he's much quieter and merely cranky at having to be awake."

As Malcolm speechlessly stared at Eamon and Fergus, Alistair asked them, "We need to take precautions like this so soon?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Eamon replied. "A half-crazed would-be assassin in a dark tavern is just as dangerous to Ferelden now as are the darkspawn, at least where the two of you are concerned. Despite being king, your life will become much more controlled and restricted in order to keep you safe."

Alistair sighed. "I was afraid of that. I take it there's a full guard ready to accompany us to Fort Drakon, then?"

"Of course. They are ready to leave when we are."

Alistair glanced over at Malcolm. "Any more complaining to do?"

"Not right now," his brother replied. "But I'm sure I'll find something later."

Fergus put an arm around Malcolm's shoulders. "I wish I could've seen your face when that guard told you that you couldn't leave."

"I hate you," Malcolm told him. "You're the worst brother _ever_."

"Ha! That means I'm the favorite," Alistair said.

"The day is still young," Fergus replied, the smile on his face growing wider.

The group finished eating and set out, with the promised full contingent of guards, towards Fort Drakon. With each step towards the prison, the mood among them all became more somber. Though they faced death each day, and had engaged in countless battles, somehow knowing they were about to see two men die seemed heavier, as if their was a consequence other than 'merely' death. Alistair felt a bit odd, knowing he looked forward to these deaths, as did his brother. He wondered if he should feel badly for wanting the deaths, but decided he shouldn't. Not when these two men had killed so many others and caused so much suffering in the living. No, it needed to be done, and Thedas would be better off for it. Everyone kept their silence, and the only sounds were their booted feet on cobblestones and their breathing, puffs of white in the cold pre-dawn air.

When they arrived at the prison, they found that a platform had been constructed in the night, and the smell of fresh-cut wood permeated Fort Drakon's yard. Two beheading blocks were at the ready, and two executioners, only their eyes showing through their steel helms, stood together, sharpening their heavy two-handed executioner's swords. The weapons were made purely for the purpose of beheading, their blades kept honed to an incredibly sharp edge and balanced to be blade-heavy, so that the first swing would be a clean, killing blow. A large crowd had gathered, much larger than Alistair had anticipated. He caught bits of their murmurs, heard the majority expressing their opinions that the former teyrn and the former arl deserved what was coming to them. They lamented what had become of the one-time war hero, the death of King Cailan, and the damage wrought already by the Blight. When they caught sight of Alistair and Malcolm, they pressed around them, and Alistair was glad of having the Redcliffe guards to keep them at bay.

When pink tendrils of the rising sun touched the clouds on the horizon, the headsmen stopped sharpening their swords and put the whetstones away. Then they took their places, one next to each block, and stood at rigid attention, with each sword's blunt tip resting on the ground, their hands crossed atop the pommels. The crowd fell absolutely silent. The doors to Fort Drakon opened, and guards carrying spears and shields marched out, forming two lines leading from the doors to the platform. Then more guards came out leading the two condemned men separately. The men were a study in contrasts. Howe struggled and stumbled purposefully, shouting, "Couslands! Your parents died on their knees. Fergus, your brat was burned on a scrap heap, along with your Antivan whore of a wife!" Then a guard punched him in the kidney, pitching him forward and shutting him up. Another guard dragged Howe until he regained his footing.

Loghain walked silently, his shoulders set and his head held just as high as when he'd walked out of the Landsmeet chamber. Eamon had told Alistair and the others that Anora had visited her father last night and made her goodbyes then. At Loghain's request to her, she would not be present this morning for his execution.

Howe struggled as the guards forced him to his knees and placed his head on the block. Loghain followed the softly spoken directions to the letter, offering no resistance. Once they were safely in position, Fort Drakon's Captain of the Guard motioned for Alistair. The newly-minted king stepped forward and up onto the platform, his brother quietly following him, carrying the decree the king had signed and sealed last night.

Malcolm handed him the scroll and Alistair read it to the crowd, pitching his voice so that everyone would hear. "Rendon Howe, for the crime of murder against Bryce Cousland, Eleanor Cousland, Oriana Cousland, Oren Cousland, Lady Landra, her son Dairren, and countless servants and guests of Highever, you are sentenced to death by beheading." He paused and let the words finish echoing through the crisp air. Then he continued, "Loghain Mac Tir, for the crime of treason against Ferelden through desertion on the battlefield at Ostagar, resulting in the death of King Cailan, Duncan of the Grey Wardens, and all the souls massacred that day, and then instigating a civil war in the time of Blight, you are sentenced to death by beheading." Alistair took another breath and surveyed the crowd arrayed in front of the platform, meeting the eyes of strangers, of family, and of friends. The first full rays of the sun crested the buildings of the city and illuminated the edges of the executioners' swords. The glow highlighted the words engraved there, the same words engraved on every headsman's sword in Ferelden: _In the Maker's law and creations, she shall know the peace of the Maker's benediction. _Alistair moved his gaze from the crowd to the two men awaiting their deaths and, perhaps, their benedictions. "May the Maker have mercy on your souls."

Then he signaled the executioners and stepped back.

The two large men in garbed in black readied themselves, raising their weapons upward.

"Maker spit on you!" Howe shouted. "I deserved more!"

Loghain remained silent.

And the swords of justice fell.


	45. Chapter 45

"And so we burned. We raised nations, we waged wars,

We dreamed up false gods, great demons

Who would cross the Veil into the waking world,

Turned our devotion upon them, and forgot you."

—_Canticle of Threnodies 1:8_

**Chapter 45**

**Malcolm**

He forced himself to keep his eyes open when the heads dropped away from the blocks, landing on the bright wooden platform below with a solid thud. The crowd gasped, as surprised as he was that it was over. The end had come faster than any battle with the darkspawn, but it had been a year in coming. A year in coming for Loghain, over a year for Howe.

Howe. Even though he felt vindicated in Howe's death, even though the man was newly dead, his head being picked up by Chantry sisters to ready with his body for burning, the man still incited anger within him. Part of him had wanted to run out and kill the man himself when he spewed those awful things about his family. But when he'd looked to Fergus, his brother's jaw set and flexing at hearing those words, Fergus had given him a quick shake of the head. Then Malcolm had understood that a reaction like he'd thought of was exactly what Howe wanted. He wanted a scene. He wanted a death like that, embarrassing Malcolm or Fergus or both if he could, even in death. So they remained stoic and didn't give it to him.

Somehow, Loghain hadn't surprised him. And though he still held anger for everything the man had done, he couldn't help but hold respect for how he'd faced his death. Calmly. Strongly. Taking responsibility for his actions without complaint. In those final moments before Loghain's death, Malcolm had seen what the man had been all those years ago during the Rebellion. He mourned the loss of that man, the one who had been the Hero of River Dane, and not the man he had become.

But deaths he'd witnessed today wouldn't bring back his parents, his sister-in-law, his nephew. Duncan was still gone, no longer the Commander of the Grey. Alistair was still stuck being king because Cailan would never be alive again. Their deaths were avenged, but they were still absent from their lives, and he didn't feel much better. Perhaps closure was just a myth, a hope passed along to the grieving.

Once the bodies had been taken away, the crowd dispersed, for the most part. Some stayed behind, milling about, for what purpose Malcolm wasn't sure. Without another look back at Fort Drakon, Malcolm and Alistair strode quietly over to where the others stood in the circle of Redcliffe guards. Then Malcolm realized that those people who had remained behind had done so to see Alistair, and once bodies started pressing closer, he realized they wanted to see him, too, for some reason. Maker, it really was going to be much, much worse than being a teyrn's son. He wondered how much of a household they'd have to appoint after the Blight. Anora could very well take the entire Palace staff back to Gwaren with her. If she left any behind, they'd have to investigate if they had been Howe's men, Loghain's men, Cailan's men, or perhaps Maric's. The only person who had a harder task than they did in terms of fixing their household was Fergus. Highever's troops had been massacred at Ostagar along with the rest of the king's army. Those who'd stayed behind at Highever had been massacred by Howe, soldiers and servants alike. Fergus had to start from scratch, the poor man.

But for now, Eamon's troops were gladly filling in for a Royal Guard detail. For some reason, they felt it was an honor. Malcolm figured that soon the smarter ones would find it exasperating trying to keep the two Theirins from exercising their independence. The poor guard from last night already felt that exasperation. Malcolm reminded himself to apologize to him for yelling. It hadn't been that man's fault anyway. The group walked silently back to Eamon's estate and fell into preparations for leaving Denerim. They had troops to organize for a march, the usual daily messengers to send to Redcliffe, supplies to wrangle. When they arrived at the estate, one messenger already waited for them, carrying notice that the Dalish had already reached full strength at ten thousand, and more continued to trickle in. They had been unhindered at Ferelden's borders and Malcolm wondered if they should have tried disguising all the Wardens in Orlais as Dalish.

On that subject, a question to Riordan yesterday after the Landsmeet had revealed that were they even to get to the other Wardens, it wouldn't be soon enough. Most likely, they were no longer massed in Jader, but split into groups along the Ferelden border, waiting for the darkspawn to boil out of the country once the Blight took it all. They did sent the fastest messenger they could, though, bearing a royal decree to open the borders to the Grey Wardens and their support troops, just in case. A second messenger had be sent via a ship from Denerim's docks straight to Jader's port, banking on good winds and the speed of the caravel itself. But they didn't hold any hope that they would be able to get to them in time, even if the ship messenger could reach Jader in the intended three days. It would take time for the Orlesian Wardens to organize a trip into Ferelden, especially given that they were probably scattered along the border between Ferelden and Orlais. At best, Orlesian reinforcements would arrive in time for a clean-up effort.

They were alone with the horde already nipping at their heels near Redcliffe.

Most of the Bannorn's promised troops were scattered throughout the country, and as the Grey Warden group made their way from Denerim to Redcliffe, the soldiers of the Bannorn would be doing the same from all corners of Ferelden. Yet even as they tallied the numbers of troops they would have available to combat the horde, they feared it would never be enough. "We're going to have over seventy thousand troops with us," Malcolm said to Alistair, reading over the newest message.

"Against the hundreds of thousands of darkspawn we saw massing in the Deep Roads," Alistair replied.

Malcolm gave him a sidelong glance. "You're supposed to be the optimistic one."

"I'm in a mood."

"Again, that's my job."

Alistair sighed and finally looked up from the message he was writing. "Loghain is dead. He's dead, but I don't feel any better. Relieved, maybe, that the threat of him trying to kill us is gone. Relieved that we can call to the other Grey Wardens for help and finally give our full attention to the darkspawn and the Blight. But... Duncan is still gone. I thought seeing Loghain die for his crimes would help with the pain, but hasn't."

"I don't feel any better, either," Malcolm said. "Sometimes I think I'll round a corner and my mother or father will be there. Or I'll walk into a room and see my nephew giggling over some trick he'd pulled on his mother involving frogs or something." He smiled at the memory of Oren and his sister-in-law. "For an Antivan and someone who had ties with the Crows, Oriana had been remarkably squeamish. Even the smallest toad would send her into a tizzy. Meanwhile, when they were tiny ones, my mother would just say they were cute."

"I take it you never scared your mother with a frog, then?"

"No. She was never one to be easily frightened. Not..." he trailed off, but forced himself to continue. "Not even the night she died. She was never afraid. Only determined. Very determined. I think she killed more of Howe's men than I did while we were trying to get to my father. She hadn't forgotten any of her martial skills that she'd used during the Rebellion."

"They fought alongside Loghain, didn't they? I remember one of the banns mentioning that during the Landsmeet."

Malcolm nodded. "Yes. I think Loghain's actions would have surprised them as much as it did anyone. They'd always spoken well of him. My father had even mentioned he was glad Loghain would be in charge of the strategy at Ostagar, as Cailan tended to be a bit too... eager. Then he promptly told me never to tell anyone he said that. And here I am, telling someone."

"Don't worry, you only told the King of Ferelden. I think that's allowed." When he realized what he'd said, Alistair's face paled. "Maker's breath, that's _me_."

"You're lucky it's you," Arl Eamon said, walking into the study, "because I'd let none lesser than the King of Ferelden to take over my own office without so much as a by your leave."

Alistair immediately got to his feet. "Sorry, Eamon. It's just that once we got here and it felt like the messengers were just hunting me down with all their... messages and paperwork and this seemed the natural place to go."

Eamon smiled. "Don't worry. After the Blight, you'll have your own study and your own maps to burn."

"I'll buy you a new map, I promise," Alistair said, a blush rising to his face.

Chuckling, the arl asked, "Are you almost ready to depart? The fifty soldiers we brought with us are ready to ride, as are your companions. Shale has already started complaining about having to ride on a cart and Oghren has started to complain that we're going to lose the race."

"Oh, Riordan was _kidding_ about that," said Malcolm, and then started wondering just what else he could dare the dwarf to do.

"If your fellow Grey Warden is the type to take up any bet that comes his way, be sure to keep him away from Teagan. My brother is still aiming to try and get someone to drink an entire barrel of pickle juice without passing out first," said Eamon, who then quickly pointed at both Malcolm and Alistair. "And before you get any ideas, neither of you are to take him up on that bet."

"As intriguing as that sounds, I had no intention of doing so," Alistair replied.

"Though I might send Oghren Teagan's way after letting Teagan know that Oghren likes dares," said Malcolm.

Eamon sighed and looked at Malcolm. "I am truly starting to wonder if you will ever not be so incorrigible."

Malcolm grinned. "Maybe after I reach my majority. So, about another year. Little less than." At Eamon's woeful look, Malcolm grinned even more. "Anyway, I think we're ready. Just need to pack up all these messages and maps. Maybe I'll have Morrigan or Wynne cast enchantments on the maps to make them fireproof so Alistair doesn't burn them all and we end up lost without any pants."

"Without any pants?" Eamon slowly repeated, and then he blinked. "You know what? Nevermind. I don't want to know. I'll see you both shortly at the stables." And then the arl practically fled the room. As soon as he was gone, both Alistair and Malcolm burst into laughter. Once they recovered, and their moods considerably lightened, they picked up their paperwork, grabbed their packs and gear from their rooms, and went into the cold, blustery day outside the estate.

Travel from Denerim to Redcliffe revealed the extent of the Blight, and they were glad they'd had the forethought to fully supply themselves before heading back. The Blighted lands had passed beyond the boundary of the West Road and now extended as far as their eyes could see on either side of the ancient highway. No wildlife or plant life remained alive in the wake of the Blight, everything sickened, corrupted, or outright killed by the darkspawn. Malcolm wondered how far north the Blight extended now, and if it had reached the Bannorn itself. The lands there were Ferelden's heartland and where much of its crops were grown. If that land became blasted and Blighted like these, Ferelden would be in danger of starving just as much as they were in danger of being killed by the darkspawn now. They could defeat the Blight only to end up starving to death in the months following. He made note of this to Alistair, and then they'd discussed it with Eamon, who'd had the same thoughts. At least they wouldn't have to send out a scouting party, as the troops would pass through all of Ferelden as they went to mass at Redcliffe, and they could bring news of the Blight's extent.

The closer they got to Redcliffe, the more troops they ran into, and before long, they resembled a real marching army, a column twenty thousand strong stretching out behind them. A day away from Redcliffe, Malcolm started to get antsy, the taint starting to tug in his veins. Alistair had the same reaction, but Oghren had yet to feel it a day out with his Joining so recent. The knowledge that darkspawn were incredibly close to Redcliffe and its encampments, they drove the horses and marched the men as hard as they dared, not wanting to exhaust their army before the battle, but knowing they needed to get there before it was too late. Like at Honnleath.

A half day out from Redcliffe, they started seeing signs of hastily abandoned camps, and before long, bodies of humans, elves, dwarves and darkspawn. After giving careful instructions to the officers and sending along those instructions to soldiers, details were given to those in the column marching behind them to burn the bodies as they passed. After another few hours, they crested the hill before the descent into Redcliffe Village and saw what waited for them.

"Andraste's mercy," Fergus said quietly.

Malcolm felt the same way. Below them, spread along the valley under Redcliffe Castle, a vast horde had formed into a battle line, where they pressed against a circle of their allies as they sought to defend the Redcliffe proper. At least one company of Dalish archers had placed themselves on the cliffs around the castle, raining arrows down upon the back of the horde, safely away from hitting their allies. Other companies of archers nestled in every high point available, doing the same, while the rest of the troops fought in an already fully engaged melee.

"We should have the troops form a line once they're all here," Malcolm said to Alistair. "The darkspawn are so intent on wiping out the troops down there that they haven't realized we're here yet. We'll have to stay up here as long as possible so they aren't alerted to our presence."

"Alerted to your presence?" Teagan asked.

"Grey Wardens can sense the darkspawn," Alistair explained, "but in return, they can sense us. Luckily, the three of us are on horseback, so we can catch up quickly."

"You shouldn't be on the front lines anyway," Eamon said.

Alistair rounded to glare at the arl. "Andraste's flaming sword! We're Grey Wardens! That's where we're supposed to be. On the front lines, fighting the darkspawn. That's kind of how it works."

"You're also the King of Ferelden," Eamon pointed out. "And I think this nation would rather you not repeat the same mistake as your brother." Malcolm noticed pain in Eamon's eyes as he said it, and remembered that Cailan had been Eamon's nephew. Not just the king, but his flesh and blood, and a loss he felt more deeply than the typical Fereldan citizen.

Alistair scowled. "Are you asking me to stay out of the fight entirely?"

"No. But you need to stay closer to the rear and amidst a full company of men." Eamon looked over at Malcolm. "Both of you."

"We're going to have to fight the archdemon when it appears," Malcolm said, keeping his voice even, not showing his frustration. He knew his frustration at being mostly kept out of the fighting was misplaced. Eamon was right. Part of the disaster at Ostagar had been the king insisting on being on the front lines. And he and Alistair and the other Wardens needed to stay alive to fight the archdemon, not be killed in battle with rank and file darkspawn. "Only Grey Wardens can slay the archdemon, and there's only going to be six of us available instead of the fifty we had at Ostagar. Or the two hundred and fifty we could've had if Loghain hadn't interfered."

Eamon let go of a long breath. "I'm willing to concede that, and if the archdemon appears, I won't argue you being on that front line. But you're both in charge of this army, you need to be giving orders and not caught up in the middle of the melee. I know you want to fight, but your duty lies in leading, not in hand to hand combat unless absolutely needed."

Malcolm looked at the field below them again. "We might be needed, even at the rear. Though, even if they remain unaware of us until it's too late, they've still got the advantage of numbers."

"True." Eamon squinted for a moment in thought. "You could remain on horseback with the fifty cavalry we brought with us to Denerim. That should keep you mobile enough to be effective and relatively safe. Well, as safe as anyone can be in battle against darkspawn."

"I can accept that," Alistair said. "I'm not going to repeat history, not after all we've worked for since Ostagar. I also want to hold the cavalry back for when the darkspawn try to run, because once they notice the army behind them, they'll do exactly that."

The troops were briefed and deployed as soon as they caught up to the vanguard. Once they were all in place, Alistair signaled the charge, and the soldiers of the Bannorn smashed the darkspawn from behind. The darkspawn, realizing they were now trapped between two lines of enemy soldiers, panicked and tried to flee. Malcolm saw this and quickly signaled for one division to move back and allow the darkspawn to run in one direction. Another signal brought a cavalry division swinging down into the field, decimating the darkspawn as they went exactly where they'd planned. Alistair and his group, along with their fifty cavalry, remained at the top of the hill, able to see the battle play out.

Then Malcolm noticed movement along the paths of the cliffs up to Redcliffe Castle. A band of darkspawn had somehow gotten up there and were making ready to assault the castle. "Alistair," he said, and pointed.

"We'll have to take care of that," he said. "We're the only ones not engaged with the main battle. We've no troops left in reserve and the commanders have their orders. Looks like we'll have to go save your castle, Eamon."

The arl nodded his assent, his face grim.

They trotted down the hill, staying to the side and away from the battlefield. The company then rode up behind the band of darkspawn, stamping through them, or sending them off the sides of the cliff. Path cleared, they got up to the closed portcullis, where an ogre repeatedly ran into it in an attempt to ram it down. The others slowed their horses in preparation to dismount and engage on foot, but Malcolm kicked his horse into a gallop, heading straight for the ogre. The ogre, so concentrated on its job of bashing the gate in, was slow to sense the oncoming Grey Warden. The hulking darkspawn turned almost comically slowly, raising its fists to swat the human down. Malcolm veered his horse at the last second and leapt from the saddle and toward the ogre, sword high over his head. His heart beat wildly in those painfully slow moments as he flew through the air, hoping his aim would be true and he'd land where he'd planned to. His sword caught the ogre in the mouth, plunging through and out the back of the ogre's head, leaving Malcolm dangling from the grip of his sword. The blow caused the ogre to pitch backward and onto the metal grating of the portcullis. Malcolm dropped from his sword and rolled away in case the ogre's body decided to slump forward.

The ogre let out a choked half-roar, and then fell silent.

As Malcolm retrieved his sword from the ogre's body, he heard Eamon shout from behind him, "Was that _really_ necessary?"

Malcolm wiped the blood from the sword and sheathed it. "It needed to be killed," he said to Eamon once he turned around.

"Certainly not that dramatically," came Eamon's reply. "We'll talk about this later." A scowl plain on his face, Eamon turned toward the cliff where the Dalish waited.

With a shrug, Malcolm followed to view the status of the battle in the valley below. By the looks of it, and the reports of the Dalish, it was mostly over. The darkspawn had been caught up in a trap and hadn't been able to escape. What remained below was cleanup, making sure all the darkspawn were dead, and then they'd begin the mass burning of the bodies and the field where the battle had taken place. Alistair signaled the castle guards and they raised the portcullis. Wynne took charge of a few soldiers and began setting up a field hospital. They would have made on in the Chantry in the village, but not knowing when another attack would be, the injured would be safer in the keep. Casualty reports started coming in with riders from the field, and slowly but surely, so did the injured. And thus started their watch for people who would be tainted, so they could be dealt with. At least they now had soldiers and mages who knew how to deal with the taint sickness and what signs to watch out for. With this many people, they wouldn't be able to personally attend to every instance of taint sickness. It wouldn't be humanly possible.

By evening, the dead—darkspawn, human, elf, and dwarf alike—had been collected and put into two piles on the battlefield, and were burning. Details of soldiers watched the fires closely to keep them under control and to make sure they burned thoroughly. On the far side of Redcliffe, the massed troops who'd marched in that day pitched their camps, while the dwarves and elves and Redcliffe soldiers who had already been there returned to their own encampments. The commanders met in the castle with Alistair and Malcolm, going over how many were lost and how long it would take for them to regroup. Once the meeting was over, Alistair watched them leave with troubled eyes.

"Five thousand dead and no archdemon," he said when Malcolm questioned him about his look. "That couldn't have been the entire horde. Where are the rest of them?"

"Maybe still in the Deep Roads?" Malcolm shrugged. "I don't know. I'm surprised they didn't attack full-force while our troops are separated. If they'd used all the darkspawn we saw down in the Dead Trenches, we couldn't have won today."

Alistair started to reply, but he was interrupted by Eamon striding into the room, pointing at Malcolm and saying, "You!"

Malcolm blinked and said nothing, not knowing what would've caused this sort of ire within the arl to be directed at him.

"Oh, this sounds familiar," Alistair said, laughter starting to rumble in his chest. Around them, others turned around, interest piqued at the coming confrontation between the prince and the arl. Fergus and Teagan looked as amused as Alistair, while the servants and guards remained determinedly straight-faced.

"Not an hour after we had a conversation about you and Alistair not taking unnecessary risks when it comes to fighting the darkspawn, you're launching yourself off a galloping horse and at an ogre when there were over fifty people riding behind you who could have helped. I cannot believe you did that!"

"I can," Teagan said quietly to Fergus.

"What did he do this time?" came Riordan's voice from the doorway.

"I killed an ogre," Malcolm said.

"Somehow I doubt it was as simple as that," the senior Warden replied, walking fully into the room and standing near Alistair, with Zevran and Líadan close behind. "What happened?"

Alistair immediately and happily relayed the story of how Malcolm killed the ogre, embellishing it so much that Leliana would've been proud. "And as Malcolm casually dropped from the ogre's cooling body, Eamon was nearly sent into apoplexy," he finished.

"Surely, he must be given credit for style, no?" said Zevran.

"You and Alistair will be the death of me," Eamon said to Malcolm. "Mark my words."

The easy humor that had been dancing in Riordan's eyes fell away at Eamon's mention of death. Then he signaled for the servants and guards to leave the main hall and shut the doors behind them.

Malcolm frowned. That couldn't be good.

Once the servants and guards had left, Riordan turned to the rest of them again, face now entirely serious. "From what we saw on our way in, I assume the battle today was won?"

Alistair nodded. "Yes. We lost five thousand people, though, so not so great a victory any of us would like. We just haven't the numbers to take losses like that, especially in battles where we don't even got a shot at killing the archdemon."

"Unfortunately," said Riordan, "the darkspawn that attacked here were relatively few in number."

"_Few_ in number?" repeated Teagan.

"Yes. I know we assumed that the horde was marching in this direction, but that is not true. The bulk of the horde is, in fact, heading towards Denerim. They are perhaps a week or a little more away from the capital. They ranged far south of us, sending out this part of the horde to distract us. And it worked, it appears."

"What? Are we sure about that?" Alistair asked, his eyes widening in alarm. "I mean... if that's true..."

Thoughts and images of another Honnleath with far greater death and destruction, haunted Malcolm's mind, and from the look on Alistair's face, his as well.

"We ventured close enough to listen in. I am quite certain. And there is one other piece of news that is of even greater concern." Riordan paused, as if he had to gather courage in order to say whatever it was he had to tell them. "The archdemon has shown itself. The dragon is at the head of the horde."

"Maker preserve us!" said Teagan.

"We can't reach Denerim in a week, not with all of our troops," said Alistair, starting to pace as he verbally sorted through the logistical problem. "Cavalry can reach Denerim in five days, four the soonest. But it would take the army on foot twice that time. And there's no point is us riding ahead or even the entire cavalry riding ahead of the rest of the army. We're already outnumbered, and splitting our forces like that would only guarantee failure." He stopped pacing and looked Riordan. "We'll have to begin a forced march to the capital immediately with what we have. We can send messengers out telling the rest of the troops where to go. Denerim must be defended at all costs."

"What is important is that we know where the archdemon will be, as you well know. If we do not defeat the archdemon, it will not matter if Denerim is saved or the horde defeated. And only the Grey Wardens can defeat the archdemon. Protecting the city is well and good, but we must slay the archdemon. That is why we must go."

Alistair nodded resolutely. "Then we march. When the commanders were here, they asked we give them at least a day before we leave. But we haven't the time. We must get the army ready to set out by daybreak. We can't let all those people die without a chance, and we can't let the archdemon slip by us, either."

"I'll give the orders at once," Teagan said, "and notify you the moment they are ready to march." He left the room at a brisk pace.

Riordan glanced around the room. "And if the rest of you would excuse us, there are some Grey Warden matters that must be discussed that only Grey Wardens can hear." The non-Wardens left in the room nodded in understanding and quietly departed. When they had gone and the doors closed again, Riordan turned to the five young Grey Wardens who watched him curiously. He took a breath, and then said, "You're all relatively new to the Grey Wardens. Even a year in the Order, like with Alistair and Malcolm, is new. You may have not been told how the archdemon is slain. I need to know if this is true."

Malcolm knew this _really_ couldn't be good. News about Grey Warden traditions and such never ended well. Usually, they ended up in all manners of entirely unpleasant deathly deadly death. "I'm guessing it can't just be some special sort of maneuver we're supposed to use. That would be too easy. And pleasant."

"So there's more to it other than chopping off its head?" Alistair asked.

Riordan let out a heavy sigh. "So it is true. Duncan had not yet told you. I simply assumed..." he trailed off and started pacing a little, as if deciding on how to explain the task, which Malcolm figured he probably was. He stopped pacing and turned to them again. "Tell me, have any of you wondered why the Grey Wardens are needed to defeat the darkspawn?"

"I had wondered that, yes," Zevran said.

"The archdemon may be slain, as any other darkspawn," said Riordan. "But should any other than a Grey Warden do the slaying, it will not be enough. The essence of the beast will pass through the taint and be reborn in that new body. The dragon is thus all but immortal. But if the archdemon is slain by a Grey Warden, its essence travels into the Grey Warden instead."

For a long moment, no one said a word. The fire cracked and popped behind them, the only thing willing to make a sound.

Then, trepidation heavy in her tone, Líadan asked, "And... what happens to the Grey Warden?"

Though, at that point Malcolm had a pretty good idea what happened, and he figured so did everyone else. All of them, no matter how they'd come into the Wardens, knew the motto by then. And now they knew why it ended with the word 'sacrifice.'

"A darkspawn is an empty, soulless vessel. The Grey Warden is not. The essence of the archdemon is destroyed... and so is the Grey Warden," Riordan confirmed. "The Grey Warden who kills the archdemon dies. And without the archdemon, the Blight ends. It is the only way."

The room fell silent again.

After a moment, Malcolm said, "That's why Duncan said that at Ostagar. Remember, Alistair? When I asked what we were supposed to do if the archdemon appeared? And he told us to leave it to him and the other Wardens and that we weren't supposed to engage in any heroics? It wasn't just to keep us out of the battle."

"He was planning on taking the final blow himself," Alistair finished.

Riordan looked between the two brothers as they spoke, and then nodded. "Yes. Duncan was the eldest of the Fereldan Wardens. In Blights past, when the time came, the eldest of the Grey Wardens would decide among them which would take that final blow. This time, if possible, the final blow should be mine to make. I am the eldest and the taint will not spare me much longer. But if I fail, the deed falls on you. The Blight must be stopped now, or it will destroy all of Ferelden before the rest of the Grey Wardens can assemble. Remember that it is up to us to end it. The troops we have amassed serve the purpose of defending the city as much as they can, yes, but also to tie up the darkspawn armies enough that we can get through and to the archdemon itself. If we slay the archdemon, they will break and run as soon as they feel the archdemon die. In the end, it is the only way to save everyone."

"We should figure out an order then, no?" said Zevran. "In case you don't make it. It wouldn't do for us to be arguing over who will save Thedas while the archdemon tries to regather its strength."

"It should be me who's next," Alistair said. "Technically, I'm the next eldest Warden."

"But you are not the eldest here by age," said Oghren. "I'm older than any of the rest of you young people, aside from Riordan. So it should be me. Besides, you've got a kingdom to run after the Blight, your _Majesty_," Oghren said, nodding at Alistair, but not without some humor. "And I'm not about to let you run out on that responsibility."

"You're the newest Grey Warden, though," said Malcolm, realizing that, by time in the Grey Wardens, he was next. "We have to keep Alistair alive to run the kingdom, yes, but I'm expendable, and I Joined six months after he did and well before you, Zevran, or Líadan Joined."

"As if I would allow you to take that blow, my friend," said Zevran. "Not while I'm alive and breathing. Besides, Fergus would kill me."

"You know, I didn't even want to be a Grey Warden anyway," said Líadan. "The taint should have killed me months ago, when it killed Tamlen. I'll do it. I'd like to see him again."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "If we're going to use that sort of argument, it's back to me, because I was a conscript, too. _And_ I was saved from dying by a Grey Warden, just like you."

"By the sodding Ancestors!" Oghren roared. "I've got at least twenty years on all of you. If any of you think I'd let you take that blow while I'm still willing and able, you've got another thing coming. I will knock you out if I have to. And if I've already fallen, the rest of you can wrestle for it or something for all I care."

The other Wardens turned to Oghren in astonished silence.

"What?" asked the dwarf. "You don't think I'm serious? I would knock you out. Gauntlet right to the face. Each and every one of you. Come on. We can practice right now. Try me."

"I believe Oghren wins, as it were," Riordan said.

"And now that that's taken care of, I believe I am sober," said Oghren. "It's time I remedied that." Then the dwarf left the room, leaving the speechless Wardens behind.

Eyes still looking at the newly-closed doors, Alistair said, "I guess this ends soon, one way or another."

"That it does, my friend. That it does," Riordan replied.

Soon, Malcolm thought, everything would change. Another event like that night in Highever, where his entire life because something very different from what it once was. For better or for worse, change was coming again. And it rode on the wings of an archdemon.


	46. Chapter 46

"With passion'd breath does the darkness creep.

It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep."

—_Canticle of Transfigurations 1:5_

**46**

**Malcolm**

He left the main hall in a fog, his feet walking him towards his room, but his mind entirely elsewhere. In a few days, though it felt like it would be tomorrow, he was sure to lose one of his friends, if not more. He would lose friends and family. There would be no way to escape it, not with the size of the horde they faced, the slim odds, and the requirements to be met in order to kill the archdemon. In days' time, the loss of only five thousand people would become a wistful memory. Part of him wondered if Riordan didn't make it to the archdemon with them, if there would be a knock-down, drag-out fight over who would make the final blow. All of them had their reasons and none of them wanted to see another die when he or she could prevent it. Oghren had a good point, and he'd made it quite clear how he felt on the matter about him taking the blow should Riordan fall. Then Riordan had made it an order for them to follow in case that happened. But after... it was a toss-up. He'd be damned if he let Alistair do it, the man had a kingdom to run, after all, and he wasn't going to escape that duty. And he was fairly certainly Alistair wouldn't let his only brother sacrifice himself either. Then Zevran, who had pledged his loyalty and his friendship, he wouldn't want either of them to take the blow. And Líadan would fight with them out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else. Meanwhile, the archdemon would probably be laughing it up in its creepy, tainted, archdemon-like way at the puny mortals trying to kill it.

First light came too soon, and yet not soon enough. From the ramparts of Redcliffe Castle, Malcolm could see far to the south and what awaited Ferelden if they did not succeed. The Blight's dark, red clouds settling over the land, extending far beyond the horizon, had now consumed most of the Hinterlands, all of the Korcari Wilds, and most of the Southron Hills. If reports were right, the Brecilian Forest was currently at the edge of the storm or at its mercy. As the Fereldans advanced on Denerim, so did the steady march of the horde, both above ground and below. As he made his way off the castle walls and to the stables, Malcolm wrapped himself as far into his woolen cloak as he could to fight off the biting winds. If the cold snap continued and the Blight cloud kept advancing, it would be a more miserable ride to Denerim than he'd first thought.

The Imperial Highway and the West Road, roads that had once served the purpose of moving Tevinter troops throughout Ferelden in the days when Tevinter had thought to subdue the wild, barbarian tribes of the land, now served their purpose as Fereldan troops marched to the defense of their land. Just the ability to march on a paved road gave the army the ability to march an extra five miles per day. Tevinter had counted on that ability as it sought to conquer Thedas, and now Ferelden would count on it to save Thedas. It also served to make the cavalry and the rest of the horseback riders impatient. Even from the first day, the horses danced with nervous energy, wanting to run it off. Their riders were no better, frustrated at the beginning and changing to short-tempered after only a few days. It was, for the most part, an understandable frustration. The horses could make the journey to Denerim in half the time it was taking for those on foot to march it. But even though they had superior speed, they did not have the numbers to warrant riding ahead.

Scouting party details became popular assignments amongst the soldiers, especially when they were placed under the command of one of the Wardens. Between the outcome of the Landsmeet, the tales from Honnleath and the Battle of Redcliffe, the damage done by Loghain's smear campaign against the Wardens had been largely repaired. It also helped that the current King and his brother, both Grey Wardens, were popular amongst the nobility and the commoners. While the rapidly increasing popularity and near-adoration had surprised both Alistair and Malcolm, it hadn't surprised anyone who'd known them before they were acknowledged as heirs by the Landsmeet.

Malcolm watched with unabashed jealousy as Zevran, Oghren, and Líadan took turns leading the sweeps out from the sides of the column, or running a half-day or so ahead. As Riordan gave out another assignment, he noticed the expression on Malcolm's face and took pity on him. With a sigh, he said, "You may go with Zevran on this detail."

He stared at him for a second, not believing what he'd heard. Then he quickly looked around him to see if Eamon or Fergus or even Alistair were within earshot. "Seriously? You aren't just messing with me? Because if you change your mind right now, I might burst into tears. And then Fergus and Alistair would have to threaten to beat you up for making their little brother cry."

"Truly, I did not know that the chance to spend time with me meant so much to you," Zevran said from next to him. Then the elf urged the horse forward and the two men went off to collect the other four cavalry soldiers who would flesh out their party. They ranged south, cutting across a ford of the Drakon River. Thus far, though the land around it was Blighted, the river itself had escaped corruption. Malcolm wondered if it was something inherent in water, because no matter where he'd seen tainted land, he'd yet to find tainted streams, rivers, or lakes. Small puddles, ponds, yes, but nothing else. It was lucky, that much was certain, or the Drakon River would've carried the taint into Denerim months ago. Five days of travel for the army had brought them north of South Reach, a day ahead schedule, and nowhere near early enough.

Part of the Teyrnir of Gwaren, South Reach stood at the northernmost point of the Brecilian Passage, the crossroads of land travel between Gwaren and the rest of Ferelden. As an arling, it stood as a strategic fortress to guard the part of the Passage that ended in a road. Once, it had been to guard against Chasind Wilders. After that, it had been against the Dalish, though the elves had never once attacked South Reach. The paranoia of an attack, however, had always proved a powerful enough threat, just as Orlais had for Loghain. For most of the past year, South Reach had served a fortress against the darkspawn. From the looks of the Blight clouds above, South Reach was a fortress no longer. They rode for it to inspect the veracity of Arl Bryland's words at the Landsmeet. If South Reach had fallen, so had the entire south. Malcolm held no hope that they would find an intact village or castle. At most, he hoped they would find it empty. While he never minded killing darkspawn, killing people hadn't been written into his agenda today.

The men they had with them consisted of one soldier from South Reach and three from Dragon's Peak—men familiar with the area, in theory. Two rode behind them and the other two flanked out to the sides, picking their way through the barren ground. Zevran rode closer to Malcolm's side. "Tell me, was it gratifying to see the snake die?" he asked.

"Not as much as I thought it would be," Malcolm replied.

Zevran nodded. "Death can be like that, no? The one who killed your family is dead, having paid for his crimes. Yet your family is still gone." He swept his arm to the side, indicating the blasted land around them. "The man who abandoned the Fereldan army and it southern lands to its fate has died, also having paid for his crime, yet this land is no less dead. In the face of death, it is hard to find more death gratifying, even if it is for vengeance." He smiled a bit. "Or, in nicer terms, justice."

"Some would say they aren't the same thing, justice and vengeance."

"But they are. One is prettily dressed in customs and trials and some morality, but strip it of its trappings, and it is vengeance. Retribution."

Ahead of them, a stick snapped, and they both fell silent. Malcolm raised a hand, calling a halt to their forward progress. Then they waited, ears straining to hear who approached them. Both he and Zevran already knew it wasn't their usual quarry.

"Darkspawn?" asked one of the soldiers from Dragon's Peak.

"No," Malcolm answered.

The answer appeared out of the trees ahead of them. Three bedraggled figures, faces blacked with soot, blood, and ichor. Their eyes scanned around them constantly, on the alert. One kept checking behind them, as if he were afraid they were being chased. Each of them held weapons, one a two-handed axe, another a mace and shield, and a third a nocked but not drawn bow. Malcolm peered more closely at the man with the most intact clothing and recognized, underneath the grime and through several tears, the wyvern symbol of Gwaren on his tabard. Soldiers, then, but refugees, more likely. "If you think you're being chased by darkspawn," Zevran said, "you are mistaken, my friends."

The mace-wielder stepped forward. "And just how would you know that, exactly? Are you a seer?"

The elf chuckled. "Alas, no. Were I one such as that, I would have made a fortune already and not plying this particular trade. Instead, my friend and I here are Grey Wardens. We can sense darkspawn, as it were. Have no fear, you are far from the horde for now."

While Zevran had spoken, the two soldiers who'd been in the rear of Malcolm's party had cut around them to stand behind the three refugees.

"Grey Wardens!" said the man with the bow, who raised and drew it as he spoke. "Then you are traitors to Ferelden!" He moved his aim from Zevran to Malcolm. "And you! You match the description of one of the bastard princes. You seek to usurp King Loghain!"

Malcolm raised an eyebrow, feeling no fear from the man's threatening motions. "You're a bit out of the loop, which, considering Gwaren's besieged state for the past few months, is entirely understandable. If you would lower your weapon, I can explain what's happened in Ferelden recently, aside from the obvious Blight." To his sides, he heard the telltale creak of two more bows being drawn.

"I can explain right now," said South Reach's man from behind the refugees. "One, you are aiming your weapon at the current king's brother, Malcolm, a Prince of Ferelden. Two, there are two more soldiers who will shoot you with their arrows before you can even think of releasing yours. Three, your false King Loghain is dead, executed for treason at Fort Drakon two weeks ago. Four, King Alistair, this man's brother, was named King of Ferelden by the Landsmeet the day before Loghain was executed. Think carefully about your next actions, soldier. They very well may be the last ones of your life."

The man removed the arrow from his bow and put it back in his quiver. "My lord," he said quietly, moving to one knee. "I report that Gwaren has fallen."

Malcolm quickly motioned for the man to get up. "Stand up!" he snapped. "This land is blighted. The less you touch it, the better. So far you've escaped the taint, best if you keep it that way. The alternative is very painful." Once the man had resumed standing, Malcolm said, "Now tell me everything you know."

"They came from underneath," the man explained. As he talked, Zevran took food from his pack and distributed it to the refugees, who ate it hungrily. "All these months, the walls stayed intact and we defended them. Not easily, mind you, but defended them nonetheless. They held. We held. And then... we woke up in the night to find darkspawn everywhere, killing everything. We got what people we could into ships in the harbor and sent them sailing for Denerim and Amaranthine, but there weren't near enough people to escape like that. After the town had fallen, we escaped, but we'd started out with ten of us. The others..."

"Turned," said the man carrying the mace. "For lack of a better word."

Malcolm nodded. "They became ghouls. It's one thing that can happen after someone is tainted."

"Yes," the first man said. "They became these... ghouls and attacked some of the others and killed them. They weren't human anymore." He studied Malcolm for a moment, fear flaring in his eyes. "That won't happen to us, will it?"

"No," said Zevran. "None of you yet carry the taint."

"So why are you out here?" asked the third man, leaning on the handle of his battleaxe. "Were you trying to find South Reach? Because we found it. It's empty. Nothing left except desiccated corpses and burned-out buildings."

"We're a scouting party for part of a larger force," Malcolm replied, inwardly wincing at the news of South Reach. "We've an army again and we're marching for Denerim to intercept the bulk of the horde. The archdemon has shown itself and they're heading for the capital."

"Maker's breath," one of the men murmured.

Malcolm signaled for them to regroup, and then they started heading back to the main column. He wasn't going to leave these three to their fates in these corrupted lands, not when they'd made it this far. They had answers for today anyway. Gwaren had fallen. South Reach had fallen. By the time they returned to the column, night had fallen. They left the grateful refugees at the medical tent and headed for the tent they used for the meetings and planning sessions they held every night. Messengers were dispatched to Amaranthine to warn them of the approaching influx of refugees.

"There's nothing we can do about the ships bound for Denerim," Arl Eamon said. "Their fates rest in the hands of the Maker and the wisdom of their captains."

"I hope their captains are more proactive than the Maker, or they're pretty screwed," Malcolm said, frowning at the map spread out on the table. When no one responded, Malcolm slowly looked up from the table to find everyone staring at him in shock, except for Eamon, who'd narrowed his eyes and looked to be glaring at him once again.

"That was totally blasphemy," said Alistair from beside him. "Everyone is waiting for you to get struck down."

Malcolm shifted his gaze to his brother. "That coming from the man who once said that Andraste was in collusion with the darkspawn?"

"He said what?" asked Eamon.

Alistair looked from Malcolm to the arl and back again. "That's not what I said. Well, I did say that, but that's not how I meant it, I swear."

Teagan eyed the two brothers for a moment, and then motioned toward the map. "How about we stop arguing theology and get back to figuring out what we're doing once we get closer to Denerim before my brother has a stroke?"

They dropped the argument and went back to strategy. "I'm thinking that about a day outside of Denerim," said Malcolm, "we cut north through the Hafter River valley and into the southern parts of the Arling of Amaranthine, somewhere near the edge of the Wending Wood. There should be hills there that give us views of Denerim, and it will keep our encampment away from the horde, at least until after the battle."

Alistair tapped at a spot on the map. "Here, down below the Aralt Ridge, near the ocean. That'll give us a view of pretty much everything and anything."

Orders were given to officers waiting outside the tent, and those orders passed throughout the camp. In the next few days, they followed those orders, and set up camp in the location Alistair had chosen, in land that was blessedly not Blighted. Parties of scouts skirted around the city of Denerim, probing and searching for signs of the horde. When they returned, they brought dire news: the horde would reach Denerim by daybreak. Already, the horde had split into two attacking wings, seemingly to encircle the city, while another column would smash the gates and pour in once they were broken. With the army exhausted and desperately needing rest after the forced march, they would have to hope the city walls could stand a few hours of siege before their forces could distract the darkspawn. Soldiers who could barely remain standing on their own two feet would do no good in a battle. Instead, they would mass just before dawn, as refreshed as they could be, and march on the horde.

Malcolm wandered off by himself after the meeting, seeking out the bluffs above the Amaranthine Ocean. He stood at the top, eyes on the dark water below, glittering in the light of the moon. The wind carried the smell of the sea and brought him back home, to Highever. He closed his eyes to the memory of when everything had been simple. When everyone had been alive. Of sitting out on the bluffs near the castle watching all the merchant ships go by, the merchant galleys, the smaller cogs, and the faster caravels. If they were lucky, a ship would be sailing from Jader to Highever or Amaranthine or even Denerim, laden with Grey Wardens.

Of course, they'd really yet to be very lucky in this whole thing. He frowned. Or had they? They'd been rescued from the top of the Tower of Ishal, when by all rights and purposes, they'd been dead. They'd found the Dalish without much searching, they'd arrived at Kinloch Hold in time to save the Circle from being annulled, they'd managed to kill Flemeth and live to tell the tale, they'd found the Sacred Ashes of Andraste, and they'd even managed to save Riordan from prison twice without being caught. Not to mention that they'd gotten through the Landsmeet with little bloodshed during a time of civil war, which was a feat in of itself. Perhaps they were more lucky than he'd first thought. Luck, however, always ran out, and he had no idea how long theirs would hold. For everyone's sake, he hoped it would last through the end of the Blight. An end which had to come soon, or it would never end at all.

A footstep sounded behind him. He reached for his sword before he even opened his eyes.

"Do not be alarmed. 'Tis only I," came Morrigan's voice.

He chuckled. She'd done this to him before, near another body of water. "I'm not alarmed," he said. "Well, not anymore. I'm glad to see you." He hadn't seen much of her during the days of the march, as she'd gone off on her own little scouting forays. And most nights, he was too exhausted to do much beyond talk for a few moments before falling into a darkspawn-filled restless sleep. With the threat of almost certain death hanging over him for tomorrow, he'd wanted to actually see her. Like now.

The air shifted as she stepped to stand beside him, but unlike as she usually did, she did not allow her body to touch his. He immediately missed the warmth she normally brought with her presence near him. "I did not come here to speak of sentimental things. I came here to see you," she said.

He frowned. "Normally, one doesn't exclude the other."

Her hand went to his elbow and she moved to stand in front of him. She gazed at him and somehow, her amber eyes were the most unnerving he'd ever seen them. Never before had she been this... serious. And it scared him. "Please do not argue," she said. "Just listen. I have a plan, you see. A way out. The loop in your hole. I know what happens when the archdemon dies. I know a Grey Warden must be sacrificed. And that sacrifice could be you. I have come to tell you that this does not need to be."

Though he'd suspected Morrigan had known more about the Grey Wardens than he or Alistair, her admission of her knowledge still surprised him. "Does not need to be?" he repeated, his question apparent.

Her eyes never moved away from his. "I offer a way out. A way out for all the Grey Wardens, that there need be no sacrifice. A ritual, performed on the eve of battle, in the dark of night. It is old magic, from a time before the Circle of Magi was created."

A way out. A way to keep them all alive should they live through the onslaught of the darkspawn and the process of taking down the archdemon. Riordan wouldn't have to sacrifice himself. More luck, perhaps? But from the gravity he saw in her eyes, he knew it couldn't be that. He couldn't even hope for it. "Nothing comes without a price," he said.

"Perhaps," she replied, giving him a small shrug of her shoulders, and taking his hands in hers. "But that price need not be so unbearable. Especially in that there is much to be gained. All I ask is that you listen to what I have to offer, nothing more."

He studied her for a moment, taking in the planes of her face, the curve of her lips backlit by the moon over the ocean behind her. Then he asked, "What is your plan?"

"What I propose is this. Lay with me, here tonight, and from our joining, a child will be conceived. The child will bear the taint. And when the archdemon is slain, its essence will seek the child like a beacon. At this early stage, the child can absorb that essence and not perish. The archdemon is still destroyed, with no Grey Warden dying in the process. The child will not become a darkspawn. It will become something different: a child born with the soul of an Old God." She paused for a moment and took a breath before continuing, "After this is done, you allow me to walk away... and you will not follow. Ever."

His skin went numb. He could no longer feel the wind on his cheeks, the warmth of his hands in hers. A pang of cold wrenched him from inside and he pulled his hands away and took a step back. "Is this why you've been so... is this... this is why you've been so friendly, so close to me?" Had it been nothing more? Had he been wrong this entire time?

But the equally pained look on Morrigan's face told him otherwise. He hadn't been wrong about her feelings or his. Some of the confidence was gone from her voice when she spoke again. "It's... why I was sent with you by my mother. It's why she saved your life to begin with. Caring for you..." she broke off and closed her eyes before continuing, "loving you... was not part of the plan." She opened her eyes and they flashed with a newfound resolve, one that reflected in her tone. "The fact that it may save your life makes me all the more determined to see it done." When he opened his mouth to speak, she took a step forward and place a finger over his lips. "Please do not cloud the issue. If you feel anything for me, then accept that it will make what we must do... that much easier."

He kissed her finger before gently removing it from his lips. "But will I ever see you again?" Ritual aside, he'd never thought she would leave him. Not so suddenly. Not without some warning. Not until well after the Blight.

"After the archdemon has been slain?"

Malcolm nodded.

"I..." and for a moment, as she fumbled for her answer, he felt hope. And then she dashed it. "No. No, you will never see me again." Her hand reached up to caress his cheek, tracing the line of his scar. "Refuse my offer, however, and I leave now." Her hand fell away from his face. "This is... simply how it must be."

When he said nothing, merely stared at her, trying to remember how to speak, trying to decide what to do and what to say, she pressed her body to his. She took his face in her hands and he bent his neck to look at her, searching her eyes. Then she placed her forehead against his and closed her eyes. "I do not wish for you to die. I do not want you to die. You must do this."

He closed his eyes and brought his hands up to enclose her wrists. He willed himself to breathe as he considered her offer. History lessons, from both his old tutor and what Riordan had remembered and told the rest of them, crashed through his head. How Blights started, how the darkspawn tunneled and tunneled to find the Old Gods. How the Old Gods sang to the darkspawn, urging them to find them and free them. And he remembered—the Old Gods sang to the darkspawn when they were uncorrupted. It wasn't until the darkspawn unearthed them that they became tainted. The darkspawn would always come for the Old Gods. No matter what the body, no matter what the soul. The Blight wouldn't end with this ritual. It would only make the darkspawn stop tunneling and start searching above ground. A scourge on all the world. His responsibility, his _duty_, was to stop it.

Not to save the lives of a few others who had already given their oath to sacrifice themselves to stop the Blight.

Not to save his own life when he had given the selfsame oath.

His duty was to save Thedas.

And not to allow love to cloud the issue.

Without opening his eyes, moved his hands from her wrists to her head, cradling it with his fingers. Then he sought out her mouth with his own and kissed her for the last time. When he broke it off, he opened his eyes and whispered, "No."

Her eyes flew open, anger and anguish whirling in their depths, and she pushed him away. "Do not let your foolish pride condemn you!" she shouted at him, the first time she had ever raised her voice at him in true anger. "No Grey Warden asked for the sacrifice that is now demanded of them, and I offer all of you a way out. I offer _you_ a way out. Should the others fall, you will die. You would put yourself before them and sacrifice yourself to allow them to live. That is who you are. Don't you think I know that whatever order for the final blow that you have planned that you have no intentions of following it? The only wish you will honor is Riordan's. And you have no guarantee that he will not fall before you get to the archdemon. I will not see you die!" Her voice dropped to a near whisper, almost pleading. "Please, if you truly love me, reconsider."

"No," he said, surprised at the strength in his voice, even as he felt something inside himself shattering.

Morrigan threw her hands in the air. "Then you are a fool! I will not stand by and watch you waste this opportunity! I will not watch you die!"

"I'm sorry," he said, willing his voice to remain strong and not crack. "I love you. I—"

"Yes," she said, cutting him off. The fight had disappeared from her, evident in the relaxation of her body, the soft, resigned note in her tone. "But not enough." As Malcolm stood absolutely still, she stepped up to him. She ran her fingers through his hair, traced the angles of his face, brushed over his scar from the wound she had healed long ago. Before removing her hand, she waited until he looked at her again. "Fare you well, my love," she said quietly, her voice as near to breaking as his own. "Should you live past the morrow, I trust it will only be with regret."

"And what will you live with, if I die?" he asked.

The love, not an act, shined brightly in her eyes, a last message to him that what she felt, and what he felt, was real. Had it not been, everything would have been easier. Instead, the wound inside opened wider, gaping and painful and raw. "Then I would mourn you, would I not?" she asked, confirming the truth she'd given him in her look. "I was foolish. We were foolish. This could have been so much easier, yet I... cannot regret what was between us, no matter that it came to this. I will always remember you, my love."

He closed his eyes against the truth and forced himself not to beg her to stay.

The warmth of her fingers dropped away from his cheek.

When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.

Barely able to comprehend what had just happened, he found himself walking to the edge of the cliff. Carefully, he sat down, his legs dangling over the side, as he had done many times as a child. The wind from the ocean chilled his body and he welcomed the cold. He didn't want to feel again, not when it hurt this much. He had fought for her, he had argued for her and for her intentions. He had loved her and she was gone. As gone to him as Leliana was to Alistair. Another victim of the Blight in an entirely different way. She had called it pride, his refusal. But what she saw as pride was duty. When he had refused to become a Grey Warden over year ago, despite his dying father asking him to do so, he had shirked duty in favor of emotion. He had given in to his fury and frustration and acted on those feelings instead of reason. It had been a mistake, one he'd made amends for, and one that he would never forget. He'd been raised a Cousland and Couslands did their duty. He was a Theirin by blood, and Theirins protected Ferelden. He was a Grey Warden by oath, and Grey Wardens protected Thedas through vigilance, victory, and sacrifice.

Not only their lives, it seemed, but through everything else imaginable. Their loved ones. Their humanity. Their souls. The least of all the sacrifices was their lives. He would give his life as many times over as it took to have Morrigan back in it. But it couldn't be. She did what she felt was her duty, she had borne as much as she could, and then she had left when she could take no more. He could no more watch her willingly die than she could him. That was something he couldn't fault her for. "She warned me," he whispered to himself, thinking on their conversations.

"Who warned you about what?" a voice asked from behind him. Alistair.

"Morrigan." He tried to sound normal. Confident. As if the woman he loved hadn't just walked out of his life forever. But he failed and his brother noticed.

Alistair, moving with surprising quiet, walked over and sat next to him on the cliff over the ocean. "What happened?" he asked. "I saw a wolf with the markings of the one Morrigan turns into. Once I saw its eyes I knew it was her. And it gave me the most baleful look and I thought that an odd look to give me before one of her little jaunts exploring in the woods. So I came to find you and see if you knew about it."

"Ah." Malcolm's eyes skittered across the tops of the waves.

"So, what happened? Or do I have to get it out of Morrigan when she comes back?"

After a moment where they only heard the rustle of the leaves and the chirping of insects in the night of a non-Blighted land, Malcolm forced himself to say, "She isn't coming back."

"What do you mean?"

"I meant that she's not coming back. She's gone for good. We'll never see her again. I'll never see her again. I loved her, but apparently not enough." His throat burned as he admitted to it, that perhaps she'd spoken truth, and he'd not loved her enough. That he wouldn't save his own life for her.

"You loved her with everything you had," Alistair said. "I think you loved her from the moment you first saw her. And she, you. Though, I never would have admitted it at the time."

"It wasn't enough." His voice hitched and he took a deep breath. He wouldn't shed tears over this. It had been his choice. He could have made her happy, could've given her one last wish. Could have spent one last night with her, but he'd chosen duty instead. He'd made yet another sacrifice in a long line of sacrifices. "She had some ritual, some old magic that would've let all of us live, no matter who made the final blow to the archdemon. But... the price was too high. It would have freed the soul of an untainted Old God into the world and that would be no better than a Blight, as far as I know. Without her ritual, there was certain death for at least one of us, and there's still no way to predict who or how many of us will be there to deliver the final blow. She... she wasn't willing to stay and watch me die. So she left." A tiny, lopsided smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "And she'd warned me, Alistair. She'd told me while I loved her, and she loved me, I would regret it in the end."

"Obviously, you didn't pay a bit of attention to it."

"None at all."

Silence passed between them, thoughts tumbling through minds, emotions tumbling through hearts. Then Alistair said, "I don't regret it. I don't regret a moment that I had with Leliana. Even given how... even with how it ended. It meant something, fleeting as it was, and even as hard as it was to say goodbye. Without those moments, without experiencing those connections, I don't think we're really alive. We wouldn't know what we're saving. I think it wasn't that you didn't love her enough. I think it was that you loved her more than you or she ever thought possible. And that allowed you to see beyond the moment and know that love means sacrificing things to keep the person you love safe. Whether from becoming a ghoul or from being engulfed by the Blight, it doesn't matter. You save them, even if you hate yourself for it, because they matter more than you do."

"Do you hate yourself for what you had to do?" Malcolm asked.

A pause, and then, "Sometimes. And then I think of what could've happened had I not... done what I did. Her becoming one of them would have been so much more worse, so much more pain and torture for her than how I felt about saving her from that misery. Then I remember why I did it—because I loved her. And why she asked me to do it for her—because she loved me. I keep that memory close, holding it tightly, and press forward. It's what we have to do. It's what we _must_ do. And maybe, one day, it will get easier. But we do what we have to for the hope of that day."

Malcolm had no reply, and so he said nothing. The two brothers remained seated in companionable silence, gazing south across the inlet and towards where the archdemon approached.


	47. Chapter 47

"Let the blade pass through the flesh,

Let my blood touch the ground,

Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice."

—_Canticle of Andraste 7:12_

**Chapter 47**

**Malcolm**

Dawn never arrived.

Instead, the brightening of the world around them brought the harsh, dark reddened glow of the looming Blight cloud, obscuring the sun. As Malcolm stared up at the roiling sky, he realized that yesterday had been the last sunrise that many of them would ever see. All of them, if they didn't defeat the horde and slay the archdemon this day, or some of them, those who would die in stopping the Blight today. And no matter what happened today, yesterday had been the last day he would ever see Morrigan, the last day he would ever sleep beside her or wake up next to her, kiss her and hold her in his arms. The last day he would ever see the quirk of her lips as she held in a laugh, the slight lift of her eyebrow at an unspoken joke. The last day he would ever see the love in her eyes when she looked at him.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind. It had been his choice and he would live with its consequences. He would not regret what they'd had together, not today. Not ever, if he could help it, but he settled on one day at a time for now. After all, this could be his last day as well. He wasn't sure what Alistair had said to the others, but no one asked him about Morrigan. At one point, it looked as if Eamon might, but a sharp motion from Teagan silenced the arl, who had to content himself with a look of gloomy curiosity.

They left a small rear guard at the camp, not bothering to strike it. They were close enough to return if they lived through the day and wouldn't need supplies if they didn't. Everyone understood that today was all or nothing. Either they returned or they did not. They didn't need the extra gear to weigh them down. Not when they needed to lift their hearts and hopes as much as they did. They massed the armies within sight of Denerim, forming a long skirmish line at the crest of a low hill above Denerim. Below them, the darkspawn had already broken through the gates of the city. With only one gateway into the city, most of the darkspawn remained outside it, seething and jeering, searching for another way in. Beyond the walls, smoke rose to further blot out the sky.

Orders had already been given and all the soldiers knew their tasks. They would be sacrificing themselves as much as the Grey Wardens and they knew it and accepted it. The soldiers, human, Dalish, and dwarf alike, were distractions. Most of them would be deployed outside the city, engaging the majority of the darkspawn forces and keeping them outside the walls. The Grey Wardens would go inside the city to track the archdemon. A few companies would go with them, but they, too, would be distractions, engaging the darkspawn that attempted to stop the Wardens from reaching the archdemon.

Alistair, dressed in the bright dwarven silverite heavy armor, charged up and down the skirmish line, looking each soldier in the eye. His horse dancing underneath him, Alistair drew his sword, one that had been Maric's sword, but now most assuredly his, and pointed it towards the scene at the city gates. "Before us stands the might of the darkspawn horde," he shouted, the confidence in his voice adding to its vigor as it carried to every ear in front of him. "Gaze upon them now, but fear them not. We have survived, despite the odds, and we will fight as long as we have to." He raised his sword in the air, its blue runes glowing hotly near the presence of so many darkspawn. "Glory is within reach of us all! Today, we avenge the death of my brother King Cailan! Today, we save Denerim! Today, we save Ferelden and all of Thedas! But today, most of all, we show the Grey Wardens that we remember and honor their sacrifice!" He signaled and flags dipped halfway in preparation for the charge. The ranks of warriors roared their approval.

Malcolm's horse stamped his hooves, catching the energy that flowed around them, as eager for the charge and coming fight as everyone else. Beside the horse, Gunnar growled and snapped toward the darkspawn around the city. They stood to the side of the skirmish line, where they would wait and observe until the hole had been punched through the darkspawn forces milling at the gate. Teagan and Fergus each had a division of cavalry ready to lead in an envelope around the city's walls and the darkspawn there as soon as the way to the gate was cleared. Eamon and Shale would stay up on the hill with First Enchanter Irving and the mages he'd brought with him. Malcolm assumed Wynne would stay with Irving and the other mages, as she wasn't a Grey Warden and didn't hold the responsibility of engaging the archdemon directly. After the charge, they'd also be leaving the horses here with the mages and the company of soldiers assigned to protect them from a direct melee charge. It would be easier for the Wardens to advance through the city on foot, and there was no need to ride horses from here to the gates and abandon them, wasting perfectly good horses to darkspawn clutches.

Alistair, seeming the picture of a king, steered his horse back to the side of the line, brought the sword down and slashed it toward the city. "For the Grey Wardens!" he shouted. "For Ferelden!" The drop of his sword told the signal flags to drop and order the charge. The massed army raced down the hill and they and the darkspawn lines met with the crash of metal and screams, glory and death.

"Nice speech," Malcolm said to Alistair once he got close enough to hear him. "Practice that one all night, did you?"

"Days, in fact," Alistair replied. "And now we wait for our chance to get to the gates. I hate this part."

Yes, the waiting. Waiting for others to die so you could take your turn at dying, too. "As do I."

"Bloody nug runners," Oghren said, his eyes focused on the battle below them. "We're outnumbered three to one."

Malcolm glanced over at the dwarf. "Technically, we outnumber the archdemon six to one."

"Yes, let's just ignore the fact that the archdemon is fifty times our size," said Alistair.

"Size is not everything, my friend," Zevran said as he dismounted from his horse and handed the reins to a waiting squire.

Before Malcolm could take advantage of that fantastic opening, Riordan pointed in his direction without looking away from the battle and said, slowly and quite firmly, "Not one word."

"I see that he's on to you, little brother," Fergus said.

Malcolm glared at him.

Wynne jumped in before the conversation could continue. With this group, all of them knew, this sort of discussion could go on for hours if not stopped. "Riordan, you have a plan for once we're in the city, I assume?"

Alistair looked up sharply from where he'd been adjusting a gauntlet. "You're coming with us? No, you can't do that. You have to stay here where it's mostly safe. You aren't a Grey Warden. You're too—"

The mage raised her hand and cut him off. "Young man, so help me Maker, if you say I'm too old I _will_ set your hair on fire, King of Ferelden or no."

"...dear to us?" Alistair finished, eyes wide in fear that the mage, driven this far into distraction by his and Malcolm's antics, just might make good on her threat.

Wynne sighed. "I am coming with you and I will not take no for an answer. You need a healer. As talented as Líadan is, she is a battlemage, not a healer."

"Thank you, I think," the elf mumbled.

"In the fight to come today, you will need healing, I'm certain of it," Wynne continued, and then gave Malcolm a sad, sympathetic look. "And with Morrigan gone, I'm your only choice, spry old woman or no. You must defeat the archdemon today and I will be helping you."

"Thank you. We appreciate your help," Riordan said, finally looking back at the group of them and effectively ending any argument. "We're doing far better than I'd hoped and the way to the gates will be open soon. The army is vastly outnumbered, as Oghren said, and they won't last long afterwards. We'll need to move quickly to reach the archdemon and get its attention. We're going to need to each a high point in the city. I'm thinking Fort Drakon might work."

"You want to draw the dragon's attention?" Líadan asked, both eyebrows raised skeptically.

Riordan gave her a level look. "We have little choice, as none of us has wings, lass."

"Bet you it was easier getting to the archdemon when we had griffons," Malcolm said. "We really should look into finding more and getting them back after all this. Really, how could we have let them just die out?"

Wynne heaved a heavy sigh and Eamon gave her a consoling look, telling her that he, as well, suffered through the astonishingly bad behavior of these youngsters.

"I doubt they did it on purpose," Riordan said as if he were answering a perfectly normal question. "And yes, we do want to attract the archdemon's attention, otherwise we'll never quite get to it. Once it catches a whiff of us, so to speak, it will zero in on us, as we're Grey Wardens. We'd best be on top of Fort Drakon if we want a chance at defeating it instead of merely being harassed by it." His eyes flicked back to the battle. "The way is nearly clear." He looked at Teagan and Fergus. "Once we're in, lead your men around the city as planned. If at all possible, prevent any more darkspawn from getting into the city. We will stand a better chance at reaching the archdemon that way." After Teagan and Fergus acknowledged the order, Riordan told them, "May the Maker watch over you."

"May He watch over us all," Teagan replied.

Fergus glanced over at his brother and Malcolm met his look. The teyrn gave Malcolm a short nod, saying nothing out loud, but communicating everything. _I love you, brother. _Malcolm nodded back, relaying the same brotherly love. The night before, Fergus had argued to be at Malcolm's side during the battle, but had been convinced, rather reluctantly, that he was best suited commanding a division instead of fighting the archdemon, as he wasn't a Grey Warden. Malcolm noticed nearly the same look pass between Fergus and Alistair, and realized that Fergus did indeed see Alistair as much a brother as Malcolm. It felt good, and warmed a part of his heart he hadn't realized had gone cold. He signaled to Gunnar and told him to stay with Fergus.

"We must go," Riordan said, and started for the city gates.

The rest of the Grey Wardens and Wynne followed, and no one looked back. The army had done its job beautifully, and two lines held an opening through the middle of the melee straight up to the gates. Those who saw them as they ran past started up a cheer, and it carried through to the rest of the soldiers, renewing the vigor of their fight. Companies of soldiers from where they'd stayed back as ordered until this new charge filed in behind them, ready to serve as the distraction, even cheering as they did. As they moved through the city, they would flank out and engage the darkspawn, giving the Wardens almost free passage, in theory, through the city. They were sacrificing themselves without complaint, for they understood that if the Grey Wardens didn't reach the archdemon and slay it, the Blight would never end.

The plan worked through the Market District and carried over into the Alienage. Elves who had stubbornly remained with their homes were shooed out and told to run to safety where they could find it, which certainly wasn't within the Alienage and its half-collapsing structures. Then again, judging from the destruction they'd left behind in the Market District—even Eamon's estate had taken a significant damage—nowhere could be considered safe. Maybe Par Vollen would be safe. That was pretty far away. Or Weisshaupt and the Anderfels, with all its thousands of Wardens or however many they had there. Certainly way more than six. Even in the First Blight, there'd been more than six Grey Wardens engaging the first archdemon, Dumat. Malcolm's mind tumbled with random bits of knowledge learned in childhood from his tutor, when he'd paid attention to "the good parts." Dumat, when an Old God and not an archdemon, had been know as the Dragon of Silence. Considering that Dumat must've done a lot of talking because he managed to teach the ancient Tevinter mages the secrets of blood magic, silent must've meant something different back then. And then after, all that calling and singing and such to get the darkspawn to release it from its prison. Serious lack of silence, there. He racked his brain in an attempt to remember what this particular archdemon had been, but he came up with nothing.

Trying to ignore the ever-strengthening pull of the taint around him, and of course now curious, Malcolm asked Riordan, "So, which archdemon is this, anyway?"

"Urthemiel," the senior Warden answered absently as he studied the sky above them, eyes flicking between the buildings near them and the high tower of Fort Drakon.

"Supposedly it was the Dragon of Beauty," Alistair said.

Riordan motioned for them to cross the bridge over to the Palace District, which would allow them the quickest access to Fort Drakon. They walked quickly and with purpose, but did not run, knowing they would need strength for when they finally reached the archdemon. "Hard to believe with a name like that," said Malcolm.

Zevran twirled his sword in small circles as he walked. "Perhaps that is why the archdemon is so cranky."

"You keep saying 'it.' But dragons have to reproduce, right? Are high dragons male or female?" Líadan asked, a curious frown on her face, one she had often as she continued learning about life outside the Dalish camp and being confused by it.

"Last one we met was female," said Alistair.

Líadan glanced over at him in disbelief. "Last one you met? You meet high dragons often?"

"Only two," Alistair replied with a slight shrug. "We didn't even fight the first one. It just... watched us pass by it. Kind of creepy, actually. The second one, though, we fought her right before we met you, in fact. But... she also happened to be an evil witch abomination who shapeshifted into a high dragon, so I'm not sure if that counts. Well, then there's the archdemon, so I guess the count is still at two."

"You didn't really answer my question."

"High dragons are female," Wynne finally said. "Male dragons are called drakes and are nowhere near the size of high dragons. They don't even grow wings."

"So you're telling me we're fighting a girl?" Oghren asked.

Alistair turned around to look at him. "No, we're fighting a _dragon_."

"We're not really fighting much of anything right now," Malcolm said. "Everyone else is, and they're doing their jobs so wonderfully that we've got nothing to fight."

"Don't get too upset," Riordan said as they passed through the gates to the next district. "We've plenty of darkspawn—" he stopped and fell silent, tilting his head as if he were hearing something. And then Malcolm heard it, and by the looks on the other Wardens' faces, they heard it, too. A voice without sound, but beautiful in its calling, corrupt in its singing, spoke to them in an unintelligible language. Then it was on them, swooping down from the sky in a burst of spirit flame and furious darkness, a mocking roar as it flew just out of their reach then far into the sky.

"I am not sure if getting to this Fort Drakon will do us any good," Zevran said, staring after the archdemon as it flew in a lazy, circling path far above the city. "No matter how high we climb, the dragon has wings and can always fly higher and escape. Even if it's wounded, it could fly away to heal itself, and then return at its leisure. I can see why those griffons came in so handy in the past Blights."

"If only we could clip its wings, like farmers do with chickens," said Alistair. "It'd probably still be able to fly, but not very far. That would keep it close enough for us to hack away at it."

Líadan's brow furrowed in thought. "What would work, though? The wings don't exactly look weak. How many arrows would it take?" She hefted her staff in her hand gazed at it, as if considering it for something. "Maybe burn a hole through a wing? Or freeze one? Be pretty hard, though, since the Creator forsaken thing is so big and powerful. Running a slit through the wing would work really well, but would be nearly as hard as killing the dragon in the first place."

Zevran gave the other elf a nearly imperceptible nod in agreement, and then resumed his calculated look toward the archdemon.

"We'll figure it out when the time comes," Riordan said, and then urged them forward. The archdemon's appearance near them brought darkspawn to them, and with most of the companies who'd been with them having flanked off earlier in the city, they finally had fighting to do. Malcolm and Alistair worked through the middle of the melee, back to back with their shields and swords flashing. Wynne hung back as much as she could, flinging darkspawn in all directions, sending them to the ground in bright flames, paralyzing others in place so the melee fighters could kill them at will. Líadan stayed near Wynne, her unique skill with two blades driven by her magic helping to protect the healer from angry darkspawn who started purposefully seeking out the mage. Zevran and Riordan worked as a team at the edges of the fight, diving in, practically unseen, landing critical blows and fading away before they could be touched by the foul darkspawn blades.

Before long they reached Fort Drakon's yard, the platform from the executions oddly still there, blocks and all. Emissaries appeared on the prison's stone steps and Alistair and Malcolm moved forward to smite them. They didn't get to one in time, but the emissary made the mistake of hurling its spell at Oghren instead of anyone else, doing no damage to the dwarf but only serving to make him angrier. Blood lust awakened in the berserker, Oghren tore apart the crowd of genlocks around him, ichor spraying around him in great waves as his battleaxe cleaved the darkspawn in two.

"Happy about being in the fighting now?" Alistair shouted at Malcolm over the din as he belted a shriek in the screaming face with his shield.

"I wasn't complaining about not fighting," Malcolm replied as he sidestepped a straight attack from a hurlock, spun, and cut its legs out from under it. "I was merely making a point that we weren't fighting _yet_." He stabbed the crippled darkspawn in the chest and ran to follow Riordan and Zevran up the stairs and into the fort. "And that the soldiers we have with us are doing a fantastic job."

Alistair helped Zevran shoulder the heavy doors open. "Not what it sounded like to me."

"Then you need to listen better."

"Could you two just shut up?" Líadan said.

"Most likely not," Zevran replied, giving the other elf an affectionate pat on the back as they walked into the prison. "Soon, you will learn to tune it out, as the rest of us have. It is either that or kill them, and that is not an option."

"For you, maybe."

"Hey, I thought I was your favoritest king ever," Alistair said. "That's what you told me the other day."

Oghren held up a hand. "Hate to tell you this, but she had just finished off the rest of my ale. The ale I'd brought from Orzammar, so she wasn't exactly in full possession of all her faculties at the time. Surprised she didn't grow hair on her arse after that."

"You're also the only king she knows," Malcolm pointed out.

"You really know how to crush a man's ego, you know that?" Alistair cast a sad look in Líadan's direction. "You wouldn't really kill me, would you?"

She pursed her lips as she mulled over answer. "No. I'll think of something else."

"That... somehow doesn't make me feel much better." Then he glanced upward as the rest of the Wardens did at the same time, all of them responding to the call of the archdemon. "It's above us. Let's go find that archdemon and kick its ass. You know, before Líadan kicks mine."

The archdemon's song unrelenting in their minds, they made their way to the top of the tower, restraining themselves from running and using measured strides instead, saving themselves for the exhausting combat to come. They halted at a set of large double doors and beyond them, they heard the archdemon, and they heard the guttural shouts of darkspawn, and the shouts and screams of men. Malcolm figured it must be any Fort Drakon guards and city guards out there on the roof, desperately trying to battle the archdemon and its minions. Riordan turned from the door to look at each of them. "Nothing you have done has prepared you for what you face now," he said quietly. "No matter what happens out there, the archdemon must die. Remember that you are Grey Wardens and all of you are worthy of that title. I am proud to call you my brothers and my sister."

Then he pushed the doors open and they came face-to-face with the archdemon.

And the archdemon was furious. It raged through the crowd of guards around it, stomping and crushing with its claws, its head dipping down occasionally to grab up an unlucky soldier and toss it away like a child would a toy. When the Grey Wardens stepped out onto the roof, its head immediately snapped around to face them, its milky white eyes regarding them with the same disdain and hate as it had watched them with for the past year. It roared at them, spewing forth a blue fire that burned at the soul instead of the skin.

After a moment's pause of unwilling awe at the sheer size and ferocity of the archdemon, Malcolm hefted his shield, adjusted his grip on his sword, and with a quick nod to Alistair, the pair of them charged in to get the dragon's attention. As the most heavily armored, they would have to keep the archdemon's focus on them to allow the others to do the most damage to it and for them to remain uninjured. This has been their strategy for the past year and it would be their strategy now, even though this was the most powerful foe they had faced. The dragon responded to their taunts, teeth snapping, claws reaching. As Malcolm ducked one of the dragon's blasts of fire, one of its claws smacked him sideways, sending him rolling across the blood-spattered stones of the roof. The dragon ignored its fallen enemy and turned to Alistair, the more immediate threat, while Malcolm struggled to his feet, his breath coming in gasps.

The archdemon spit fire towards Alistair, knocking him to the ground, the dragon's tail flicking between Riordan and Oghren. Then it advanced on its prey, leaving its tail to rest on the roof between Líadan and Zevran. Malcolm started shouting at the archdemon to get its attention away from his brother, but it continued ignoring him. He glanced around the roof area, trying to figure out something to do to distract the archdemon from crushing Alistair. The tip of the dragon's tail twitched and the movement caught both his and Líadan's eye. The Dalish put away her staff, drew the sword she'd gotten in Redcliffe to replace one of her daggers, and bolted forward.

"No!" Malcolm shouted, and ran to stop her from doing something incredibly stupid.

Zevran got there first, leaping over a thicker part of the tail, using one of the spines to give him momentum, and pushing Líadan away with his feet. She fell to the ground with an outraged cry, her sword clattering away. Zevran continued on the spine, not letting go, and spun himself back onto the archdemon's tail. He drew his sword and dagger and ran up its back.

"No!" Líadan yelled, now on her feet and drawing her staff.

"What do you think you're doing?" Malcolm asked. "Get down from there!" Grimacing at how ridiculous he sounded, like a mother admonishing a child to stop climbing on a bookshelf, he could only watch as his friend ignored him. The dragon, however, did not ignore Zevran. It had been inches from its mouth grabbing Alistair, and instead of doing so, its head turned and snapped desperately at the elf on its back. Zevran nimbly jumped out of the way of each snap, the razor-sharp teeth never touching him. And the elf grinned madly the entire time like he was playing the most awesome game ever.

Now more frustrated, the dragon's powerful wings started to beat, lifting the beast into the air, and the elf with it. The sudden change in altitude knocked Zevran off-balance and he thrust down with his sword, and then his dagger, using them as handholds. The dragon continued rising, ten feet, twenty feet. Malcolm could still see Zevran's gaze and saw that his friend had no intention of going for the dragon's head for a fatal blow. Instead, the elf worked his way over to one of the dragon's wings. And then Malcolm realized that Zevran had planned on this the entire time. Since Zevran had mentioned their little tactical problem of no wings of their own and Alistair had mentioned wing-clipping, and Líadan had brought up how they could clip the dragon's wings, given the chance. And Líadan, he knew, had fully intended on doing it herself, he'd seen it in her face as she eyed the path up the tail to the dragon's body.

But Zevran had stopped her and now rode the dragon himself, higher and higher into the sky above Fort Drakon. The archdemon spun wickedly in the air, whipping its body against parapets and towers and outcroppings in wild attempts to get the Grey Warden off its back. The archdemon, for all its taint and corruption, wasn't stupid. Zevran laughed as he doggedly not only hung on, but continued his progress towards the dragon's right wing. Then using his feet and the hand on his dagger for propulsion, the elf leapt. His sword flashed in the air and toward the top of the wing, his lithe, graceful body easily reaching its target. His sword bit into the flesh and both of his hands grabbed onto the hilt.

Zevran's weight drew the sword downward, tearing vertically through the wing as it went, the great ripping sound carrying to the people below who witnessed the spectacle above. The archdemon screamed and spun higher, out over the side of the tower, out of their reach. Its wings beat faster, almost frenzied now, trying to fling the elf off before he cut the wing into uselessness. But Zevran didn't let go, allowing his weight to continue slitting the leathery wing. The dragon rolled and pitched, tossing the elf from side to side, and still he refused to let go.

Then Zevran ran out of wing.

The sword slipped free of flesh, yet continued its descent. Finally, Zevran let go of the blade, his arms flying out to the side, finding no purchase but air. The archdemon screeched and tumbled downward, its one intact wing flapped to steer it back over Fort Drakon's roof. Zevran plummeted towards the ground far below, towards the yard outside the prison, hundreds of feet down. Malcolm thought he caught his friend's face before he passed out of sight and he could have sworn he was _smiling_.

"You son of a bitch!" Líadan yelled the air where Zevran had been before hurriedly turning to freeze a hurlock in place, and then shattering it with the butt of her staff.

Malcolm couldn't agree more. He also couldn't believe that his friend was gone. One more connection to the family and the life he'd had before the Blight was gone. More evidence that even if they ended this thing, killed this archdemon, things would never be the same. He drew his eyes away from where Zevran had been and to where the archdemon desperately tried to raise itself from the ground. Two of its legs were obviously broken, the bones jaggedly sticking through its scales, blood spilling in thick rivers across the ground. But the fight was still there and the archdemon continued biting anyone who got close to its face, impaling others with the spikes on its tail when they tried to flank.

But Malcolm realized that Zevran's actions had not merely clipped the dragon's wing—it had given them a chance. Dalish archers started pouring in from the doors, arrows zipping towards the dragon as they ran, human and dwarven warriors close behind them, hacking away at darkspawn that attempted to stop them from getting to their leader. A sudden twitch of the tail hit Riordan in the chest, sending him smack into a wall, weapons flying from his hands. Growling in outrage, Oghren ran forward and slit the archdemon's underbelly. As he rolled out from under the stream of blood, one of the spikes from the whipping tail caught him in the gut and sent him to the stones. Malcolm ran for Riordan and Oghren, Alistair falling in near him, his shield gone as his left arm dangled limply at his side, savaged at the shoulder from darkspawn teeth.

Both Wynne and Líadan had switched to ranged, offensive spells aimed at the dragon, joining the hail of arrows jabbing through the beast's scales. A crack of lightning from Líadan struck the archdemon in one of its milky eyes and it screamed again. Blood flowed from the burned-out eye socket. A shriek hit Líadan from behind, claws digging into her back and she pitched forward, shouting pained invectives as she struggled with the darkspawn.

The dragon's movements started to slow. More people were able to avoid its blows, its teeth and its tail no longer so deadly. Its head began a slow, listless descent toward the ground. The warriors on the rooftop started to close in, sensing the dragon's imminent death. Seeing the looks in some of the soldiers eyes, Malcolm started to worry that one of them would take it on themselves to kill the archdemon, that Zevran's sacrifice would be wasted and it would begin all over again. And Riordan was nowhere to be seen. Had he fallen? There wasn't time to check. This Blight had to stop now. Malcolm tossed his shield to the ground and, ignoring the crushing pain inside his chest as his lungs struggled to fill underneath cracked ribs, he brought his sword to bear.

"Don't you even think about it," Riordan's voice said from behind then beside him, snatching Malcolm's sword from his hands. The archdemon saw the Grey Warden running for him and tried to meet Riordan's charge. Instead, the war cry from the Warden overpowered the dragon's weak growl. He sailed through the air toward the dragon's drooping head. As the archdemon's head landed on the ground, Riordan landed on the archdemon, his sword, Duncan's sword, plunging through the top of its skull and into everything below.

A blinding pillar of light streamed from the wound, enveloping Riordan and the dragon's head as the others on the rooftop fought to keep their eyes on the sight before them. The light transfixed the Grey Warden where he stood as he struggled with his grip on the sword. It held him fast and the light grew in its intensity, causing Malcolm to half-shade his eyes as he watched. He fought the urge to run forward to help somehow, knowing he was witnessing the death of another friend, and even knowing he'd agreed to it. His foot took a step forward of its own volition, but a firm hand immediately fell on his arm, holding him back. "Let Riordan be the last sacrifice," Alistair said, and then let go. Malcolm remained in place, understanding.

The archdemon's song shouted in the Grey Wardens' ears, screamed at them in its agony. Wind swirled around the blinding column, whipping around in a vortex of light as it wrapped around Riordan. One high, keening note sounded in the archdemon's call and senior Warden's eyes opened wide and the light broke apart, hurling everyone to the ground. Above them, the shaft of light exploded into a ring of fire the same as the spirit flames the archdemon had used against them.

And then, the song ended.

The darkspawn left alive around them, now leaderless, fled. Some even jumped off the roof in their rush to get away from the warriors massed against them, while others practically impaled themselves on swords offered blade-first by their enemies. Malcolm ignored them as he stood up, gasping as his chest protested. He turned to Alistair, who struggled to lift himself with only one usable arm. Wynne had beaten them both to standing and bent over Alistair, a warm glow spreading across Alistair's upper body, healing his shoulder. As he got up, Wynne turned to Malcolm and knit his ribs together, allowing his lungs to fully expand for the first time in what felt like forever. The three of them slowly approached the archdemon's body.

"Is it dead?" Wynne asked.

"I can't hear its song anymore," Alistair replied.

"Neither can I," said Malcolm.

Duncan's sword remained in the archdemon's head. Riordan had fallen beside it, and as Malcolm got closer, he realized that the senior Warden didn't have a mark on him. Not a single wound or injury remained. Somehow, the blow had healed him on the outside before annihilating his soul.

Then Riordan's eyes opened, giving each of them a bewildered look.

Malcolm blinked. "Well, this is awkward."


	48. Chapter 48

"At last did the Maker

From the living world

Make men. Immutable, as the substance of the earth,

With souls made of dream and idea, hope and fear,

Endless possibilities."

—_Canticle of Threnodies 5:6_

**Chapter 48**

**Malcolm**

"You should be dead," Alistair told Riordan.

The senior Warden coughed and glanced down at his body. "I'm well aware of that fact."

Malcolm's gauntleted hand went to his chest, where he'd slung the ring Morrigan had given him on the same leather thong that held the amulet he'd gotten after his Joining. He'd turned her down the night before, but would she have gone to another? It wasn't like he was the only male Warden they had. Poor Líadan had a plethora of Warden brothers. Him, Riordan, Alistair, Zevran, _Oghren..._ At that thought, an involuntary shudder hit him. Then he looked over at Alistair. "Did you..."

Alistair's eyes opened wide in horror. "No! Maker, no."

Riordan looked from one brother to the other. "What are you talking about? I suspect this has something to do with me being alive when I should not be?"

"Yes," Malcolm replied. "But I doubt right now is the time and place to discuss it. You know, with all these other people around." Then he remembered they had two other Wardens up here with them, ones who'd gone down in pretty bad ways before Riordan had killed the archdemon for good. "Líadan," Malcolm said to Wynne. "Shriek got her from behind. Looked very not good. And Oghren, the dragon got him with one of its tail spikes." After another confused look at the Wardens, Wynne gave him a short nod and rushed off to find Oghren and Líadan.

Alistair and Malcolm leaned over and helped Riordan to his feet. "You look pretty good for someone who just killed an archdemon," said Alistair.

"Which is why I am wondering if the archdemon is dead at all," Riordan replied, walking over to the dragon's head and nudging it with his foot. He grabbed the hilt of the sword with both hands, braced himself, and tugged it out. "However, I cannot hear its call any longer and I suspect were it still alive, it wouldn't be quite so silent."

Malcolm looked up at the sky, squinting as the sunlight appeared through thinning clouds. "And the sky is looking less... ominous."

"I was going to mention the fact that all the darkspawn ran away," said Alistair, and then he shrugged. "Maybe what Zevran did killed it and all that movement afterward was just its... death spasms."

Their eyes immediately shifted to the last place they'd seen the Antivan. "Perhaps," Riordan said after a moment, wiping the archdemon's blood from the sword he held. "It's as good as explanation as any for now. And the people will need a body, that much is certain. There has to be a hero, and in the case of a Blight, the hero tends to have to be dead. However, we have much to talk about later in camp." He handed Malcolm his sword back and gave him a level look. "Much to talk about."

Around them, soldiers and warriors were now getting to their feet, casting confused looks in their direction. Apparently everyone was as surprised as they were to find Riordan alive. Trying to make their way to their friends, they fended off questions, saying that Zevran's blows before he cut the dragon's wing must've killed it. It sounded weak to the Grey Wardens, knowing what it really took for the archdemon to die, but they had no other explanation. At least, not one that they were willing to give. Líadan was already on her feet, scowling and complaining about how certain Crow assassins shouldn't be riding dragons and that elves were not meant to fly. Under Wynne's careful work, Oghren got up next, bellowing about being perfectly fine and that the spine that'd ended up in his gut was his to claim and no one else could have it.

Then they left the rooftop and the archdemon's carcass behind them and went to Fort Drakon's yard, searching for the body of their friend. They found it amidst the rubble outside, black leather armor covered in dust and blood, the sword that'd hobbled the archdemon close by. Malcolm ran over to the elf's body and closed his eyes against the sting of tears, forcing them away. This had been his friend's choice. He would respect it. He owed him that much, even though he hard already started to wonder what other choices his friend had made. Then he opened his eyes, and with Líadan's help, moved Zevran's body to flat ground. Alistair handed him the sword and they placed it on top of the elf, hands on the pommel and tip pointed towards his booted feet.

Human warriors near their height stepped forward, volunteering to help. With great care, the six of them hefted Zevran's body onto their shoulders, Malcolm and Alistair in the front. Leaving the prison behind them, they slowly made their way out the gates of Fort Drakon, becoming a procession as the rest of the warriors from the battle fell into silent step behind them. A crowd waited outside, at first cheering at their appearance, and then falling into an almost worshipful silence when they saw that they carried a body. The crowd parted for them to pass through, and as they walked by, fists went to chests and heads bowed.

Outside the gates, they found the same as had happened in the city: the darkspawn had fled. Bodies were left behind, and already Malcolm could see that men had been put to work gathering the darkspawn and burning them. There would be a different pyre later for the warriors who had died for Ferelden and Thedas. Someone must have run ahead, because they were met by the rest of the vanguard just past the gates, along with a wagon for Zevran's body. They put their burden down and mages moved forward, casting spells on the body. Malcolm shot a quizzical look at Riordan. "Preservation spells," the senior Warden answered. "The body will be interred at Weisshaupt with the other Grey Wardens who slew archdemons."

"Right," said Malcolm, wondering exactly who had killed the archdemon. He supposed Zevran's actions could've caused the death, but it did seem like Riordan's blow had been the final one, what with the light show and all. But he couldn't think of an explanation other than if someone else had taken Morrigan's deal, if had she offered it to another one of the Wardens. Then he realized he couldn't think of a reason why she wouldn't. It could be just the cold, hard fact of wanting a child with the soul of an Old God, or that out of some sentiment, she hadn't wanted him to die. She'd been right about him, after all. As soon as he'd realized he couldn't find Riordan and that one of the non-Wardens might end up taking the final blow, he'd been about to do it himself. Or it could be both reasons. Her reactions last night hadn't seemed ones that someone would have were they not in love. Then again, she'd been planning this outcome from the beginning—getting control of that Old God's soul, somehow. And she didn't need love for that. Just a guy who happened to be a Grey Warden and, out of sentiment, might not take into account what it would mean to have an Old God on the loose in Thedas.

Of all the men available, Malcolm was starting to get a pretty good idea who that person would have been. The puzzled look on Riordan's face after he'd woken up made it fairly clear that the culprit hadn't been him. Just as the same as the horror on Alistair's face after he'd asked him told him the same for his brother. That left Oghren or Zevran. One he could ask, the other he could not. But if Oghren told him no, and he suspected he would, the process of elimination pretty much covered it.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a two hundred pound body of barreling fur launching into him and knocking him to his back in the trampled grass. Malcolm kept himself from laughing as Gunnar tried to slobber all over his face in greeting. After a few minutes, he finally shoved the dog off him and stood up. Fergus and Teagan had appeared, alive and well aside from a few cuts and scratches, and both of them untainted. What Alistair declared were "manly, warrior hugs" were exchanged while they assured everyone that the archdemon was indeed dead. Malcolm figured they were mostly telling the truth—the high dragon that had once been the archdemon was quite dead. As for the soul, however, which was the true problem, he had no idea. Even if the soul had escaped and found its way to Morrigan's recently conceived child, it stood the chance of being untainted, which meant this Blight was over. It was the darkspawn that corrupted, not the Old God. Well, at least the darkspawn taint. He was pretty sure the Chantry claimed that the Old Gods had corrupted the Tevinter magisters' souls in order to make them seek out the Golden City in the first place.

Malcolm's head started to hurt and he shoved the thoughts away to deal with later with the rest of the living Grey Wardens. Alistair was speaking with Eamon and Riordan about what tasks left to them. "We'll have to clear out the city," Alistair said, "and deal with the archdemon's body. How do you even dispose of a tainted high dragon's body?"

"Probably with a lot of fire," Malcolm said, and then noticed Riordan giving him a frantic look and trying to signal something with his hands. Oh, right. Joinings needing archdemon blood. "After we take another look at it, of course. We might want to get some mages to cast a temporary preservation spell on it for now. It's been four hundred years since we've last seen an archdemon, so some study might be a good idea." Riordan gave him a short, appreciative nod. Good, right decision.

"I agree," said Irving, and then he turned and ordered a few mages back into the city with some soldiers to attend to the matter of the archdemon's body.

"We don't have much more time before night falls," Alistair said to the people gathered around them. In addition to Eamon, Irving, Fergus, and Teagan, the other commanders had slowly walked over to their position to give their reports and findings. "We'll need to gather the non-darkspawn bodies as quickly as we can and have another pyre. We also need to ascertain just how many survivors there are in the city and how many injured civilians there are. We must be certain any vestiges of the Blight are removed from the city as soon as possible." Alistair turned toward the commanders now arrayed before him. "Though I figure that tonight our armies will need rest?"

"Yes, your Majesty," said Garvan, the human Redcliffe commander who'd been with them at Honnleath. The other commanders nodded their own assent.

"I can have some of my archers patrolling and searching the city for you tonight," said Ailís, the Dalish commander, another Honnleath veteran. "They didn't see as much of the battle as the cavalry and foot soldiers did. Elves also have much better night vision. My warriors can mark down places where bodies are located and mark any houses that will have to be emptied or razed."

"Thank you, Commander," Alistair said. "But please have them work in shifts and allow them back at the camp at some point. Somehow I have a feeling there will be people wanting to celebrate the end of the Blight despite the losses we've taken."

"Aye," said the dwarven commander. "I know my men will be. It isn't often that an archdemon gets what's coming to it."

"True enough." Alistair glanced back at the wagon where Zevran's body lay.

The dwarven commander noticed. "I see that it was another elf that took the archdemon down," he said. "Last one was Garahel, as I recall. Little blighters are tougher than they look." The dwarf grinned over at Ailís.

"I'll take that as a compliment, dwarf," she said, rolling her eyes. "Now, I must take my leave and attend to my men and their new assignments." She gave a short bow and strode off, the carved wood of her bow glinting in the late afternoon sunlight, her two aides already trotting at her side and listening to her orders.

As Alistair relayed more orders, squires brought their horses to them without any of them having asked. Malcolm figured Eamon or someone must've told them. Already, the soldiers of the army who hadn't been given any other duties had headed back to their waiting camp for rest or whatever else they would do after a momentous battle like had happened today. Celebration like after Honnleath, he knew, though he couldn't really imagine celebrating himself. His friend had died, a friend who might have betrayed them all if it could be viewed as that. If he'd even done it, though he couldn't imagine he hadn't, not with how everything had turned out. The group of them rode back to the camp beside Zevran's cart, serving as an honor guard of sorts. Even if he'd taken Morrigan's deal, his actions had either killed the archdemon outright or had made it so Riordan could finish it off. In the end, he was a hero. As they rode, Fergus and Teagan told them about the battle that'd taken place outside the city, while others talked of what'd happened inside the city while the Wardens had fought the archdemon. Malcolm half-listened, uneasy at hearing how many times others had nearly died, including his brother Fergus. At hearing of Gunnar's own heroics at taking down an Alpha hurlock that'd been bent on killing Fergus, Malcolm grinned down at the wardog running at his horse's side. The dog gave him a canine grin of his own, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

By the time they got back to the camp, the first stars had started to appear in the sky, the clouds of the Blight having disappeared entirely—yet another sign that the archdemon was indeed dead. Passing by the various fires around the camp, they heard soldiers and warriors already telling and re-telling the fantastic story of the elf who leapt onto the archdemon's back and struck it dead from the sky. Malcolm wondered what the soldiers and archers who'd been up on the rooftop with them would say, but it sounded like they agreed that it'd been Zevran who'd killed the dragon in the end. It didn't hurt that the Grey Wardens had agreed with the assumption when asked. Riordan told them to clean up and meet him later at the fire they had for their small camp in the center of the encampment. "While I now believe the archdemon to be dead, we still have much to discuss," he said.

Malcolm walked with Alistair to the mess tent, reminded of Honnleath once again. Except this time they passed the spot where they'd left Zevran's body, a new honor guard in place, one warrior each from the humans, elves, and dwarves. Already, it had become an impromptu memorial, with flowers and candles, and someone had even gotten a small wooden altar and set it up nearby. The body had been attended to and it was now free of the blood and soot and dust that had covered it. The black leather armor dully reflected the candlelight near it, the flicker of the same light playing on his tattooed cheeks, now peaceful in repose. A line had formed and people processed by, dropping more flowers—where had they even found them?—or notes or other various things. All of them seemed to be whispering thanks of some kind. Malcolm wanted to wake him up and yell at him for jumping on a dragon, ask him just what he'd done the night before, and thank him, too, for the sacrifice he'd made by leaping on the dragon. Mostly, he just wanted his friend back. To these people who crowded around the cart, Zevran was a savior. To him, he was a friend and he already missed him.

When they finally arrived at the tent, mouths watering as the scent of fresh, hot food hit their noses, they were confronted with the reality of just what they'd accomplished that day. The soldiers who saw them immediately rose to their feet with cheering and clapping, stopping the two young men in their tracks. Malcolm felt a blush race to his cheeks and a sidelong glance at his brother told him Alistair felt the same. He'd never encountered this level of enthusiasm from any troops and had no idea what to do to calm them down. Shouts of 'long live the king,' 'long live the Grey Wardens,' and even, to Malcolm's shock, 'long live the prince' flooded the tent. Before long, the shouts rallied to include the entire camp, huzzahs from all the different fires and tents around them.

"I just want to _eat_," Alistair told Malcolm.

"Me, too," he replied, wondering just how they could manage to do so in all this.

Alistair, as if remembering something Eamon or someone else must've told him, raised his hand and asked for silence. His eyebrows raced towards his hairline when the crowd in front of them did just that, followed by the crowd that had somehow built up behind them. They waited quietly now, all eyes on Alistair and his brother, as if they expected something from them.

"You might want to say something," Malcolm told his brother.

Alistair blinked at the idea, apparently drawing a blank about what to say. Malcolm didn't envy him—he had no idea, either. Finally, Alistair said, "Today, we defeated the archdemon and the Blight. Today, we saved Ferelden. Today, we saved Thedas. Celebrate your victory, for you have earned it!"

Another roar of approval sounded throughout the camp.

"Now attend to your meal," Alistair said once it had quieted down, "because if you don't, I won't be able to attend to mine, and I'm _starving_."

Laughter rumbled through the crowd and the warriors went back to whatever they were doing before the two Wardens had arrived. Space was made for Malcolm and Alistair to retrieve food, and instead of staying with the others and creating more of a disturbance, they fled back to their small camp. "That was insane," Alistair said as soon as they were within the light of their fire.

"It will only get worse, I think," Malcolm said, happily tearing into his hunk of fresh bread.

"It's true," said Oghren from his seat on one of the logs they'd rolled near the fire as had been their group's custom for the past year. "I've seen it myself in Orzammar. The dwarves love King Endrin, always have. Wherever they go, they cheer his arse. I see the same in the eyes of these surface warriors, too. Ancestors take them, I've even seen the dwarves look at you with the same thoughts! Loving a surfacer king, never would've thought I'd see the day."

"Thanks, Oghren," Alistair said. "I think."

"Ha! You shouldn't thank me. It'll drive you nuts within a week, I guarantee it." Then he pointed at Malcolm. "And you! They feel the same. You're in for it just as much. Be glad you aren't king, that's the only thing that'll save you from the worst of it."

"I've ever grateful that I'm not king," Malcolm replied. "And forever I will be, too. I've heard it's a horrid job that no sane person wants."

Oghren nodded. "I knew you were right in the head." He held out a flask. "Ale?"

"Not if it's from your personal stash, no. I'd like to keep my food in my stomach if it's all the same to you."

"Eh, your loss. Only the finest ale you'll find topside." The dwarf took a slug from the silvery flask.

Malcolm studied him for a moment, and then asked, "Last night, you... Morrigan didn't approach you about anything, did you?"

Oghren tucked the flask away into his beard, his bushy eyebrows raising. "Is this about Riordan living? Since he hasn't been glaring at either of you, I assumed you let him take the final blow. I'd wondered if you would, you know, both of you. You're too noble for your own good at times. Won't even let the older men do what they're supposed to do. Youngsters getting in the way and all."

"What's this about Morrigan?" Líadan asked from beside Oghren, her first time actively participating in any conversation with them since before the battle with the archdemon.

"I am quite curious myself," came Riordan's voice as he appeared near the fire, food in hand and a questioning look on his face. Malcolm sighed and shifted uncomfortably as Riordan sat across from him and his questioning gaze pierced him from the opposite side of the fire. The senior Warden set his plate on his knees and gestured around them. "Right now it's only Wardens, so it's as good a time as any to explain to me what you think might have happened to keep me from dying. All of us know that I should have died when I made that blow. It was the final blow, I have no doubt about that. And yet, here I am."

After taking a deep breath, Malcolm told them of the deal Morrigan had presented to them. He explained his reasoning for refusing it and postulated that Morrigan might have gone elsewhere to get what she wanted.

"Zevran," Líadan said. "You think it was Zevran."

"Yes."

The Dalish nodded slowly. "I do, too. He..." she paused for a moment, her eyes going a bit fuzzy. "He talked to me about a lot of things." She sighed and pulled out one of her daggers, twirling it nervously in her fingers, her version of fidgeting. "When I'd found out he'd been an assassin, I'd wanted to know why he'd become a Grey Warden because I didn't think he was the type, so to speak. But, he explained what your sister-in-law had been to him, what your entire family had been to him. And that led to him talking to me about how he grew up, and how he hadn't done anything that really _meant_ something until he'd become a Grey Warden. After that meeting, when the rest of us found out that whoever killed the archdemon would die, we talked about how slim the odds were that any of us would even get to the archdemon, much less it being Riordan who'd be able to deliver the final blow. He said that if it came to it, he would make sure that you guys lived, because you had much more to live for than he did. So if Morrigan went to him with her deal, I'm sure he'd take it to make sure that no one died." The elf scowled and kicked a rock near her feet. "Of course, he had to go and die himself by jumping on the archdemon's back."

"He almost did that in the Deep Roads," Alistair said, and then looked at Malcolm. "Remember? You had to hold him back."

"I remember." He should've seen it coming, this feat with the archdemon. Zevran had given plenty of warning if he'd really paid attention. "I guess he got what he wanted."

"While the archdemon is dead, there's still the untainted soul of an Old God loose on Thedas," Riordan said. "Wherever Morrigan is, anyway. I have a fear that the darkspawn will chase after her, if the Old God calls as they do in the Deep Roads."

"I thought the same," said Malcolm, "which is why I refused. I thought that instead of digging, the darkspawn would remain above ground and search for the Old God that way." Then a thought struck him. "However, if the Old Gods only call to the darkspawn because they're trapped in their underground prisons, would this Old God actually call to them? In a way, I suppose it's free, so it doesn't need anything to dig it out."

"There is much research to be done," Riordan said. "And I'm afraid the Grey Wardens will have to search for Morrigan because, as far as we know, she is both a danger and is in danger." He stood up. "But the Blight is over, that much is true, and the danger is not so pressing as it once was. Get some rest, all of you. There is still much to be done in the coming days."

And there was. The morning brought the reality of cleaning up the city, funeral pyres for the humans, burials for the Dalish, and readying the fallen dwarves to be returned to the stone. Clearing and reconstruction efforts were started within the city to get it habitable again as soon as possible. Luckily, the darkspawn had concentrated their efforts on eliminating the maddening Grey Wardens as they fought to reach the archdemon. That type of battle had left a corridor of destruction rather than havoc around the entire city. They were able to cordon off the damaged areas and the rest of the city was habitable by midweek as a result.

At the end of the first week, ships appeared in Denerim's harbor bearing fifty Orlesian Grey Wardens. When they strode into the throne room at the Royal Palace, a black-haired man looking to be of an age with Riordan stood at the head of them, his face as bewildered as the rest of his men and women. Summoned by a runner, Alistair, Malcolm, and Riordan met them there. The black-haired man's stark green eyes lit in surprise at seeing Riordan and greeted him enthusiastically. Riordan introduced him as Lucien, the Warden Commander of Orlais and introduced Malcolm and Alistair as first Grey Wardens, and then the current royal family of Ferelden, as it were.

"We've noticed a surprising lack of darkspawn lurking about in your city, your Majesty," Lucien said. "The last message we received told of a horde hundreds of thousands strong bearing down on this capital."

"You're a bit late," Alistair replied, nodding in greeting. "The final battle was days ago."

"Yes, you totally missed out on the Blight," said Malcolm.

Lucien cast a knowing look at Riordan. "I take it he is the one you and Duncan spoke of in your letters, then," he said, his deep voice tinged with humor.

Malcolm refrained from rolling his eyes. This man scared him no more than Eamon did, which was to say, he didn't scare him at all. The meetings following were long as they explained all that had happened since Ostagar, the last battle with the archdemon, and Morrigan's offer. The Orlesian Wardens agreed that the Blight was over, and shared in their fears about what it meant to have an untainted Old God on the surface. They also agreed that Zevran deserved credit for the final killing blow to the archdemon and the elf's body was sent to Weisshaupt. An honor guard of Wardens, along with a messenger asking Weisshaupt's thoughts on the matter of Morrigan, accompanied it. Malcolm had wanted to go himself, both to accompany his friend on his final journey and wanting to grab at the chance to meet his natural mother, but duty compelled to stay in Ferelden for the time being. Lucien appointed Riordan as Warden Commander of Ferelden and returned to Val Royeaux after a few days, leaving twenty Wardens behind until Ferelden could up its own numbers.

After Alistair's coronation a few days later, Malcolm started to get antsy. His role in the administration was still up in the air. Alistair wanted him around as an advisor and figured the kingdom would need the prince of Ferelden around as much as the king. Eamon agreed with Alistair, to Malcolm's dismay. Though, he wasn't sure where he wanted to be. His was a Grey Warden still, that much was true. Riordan hadn't told him outright that he was supposed to remain with the Wardens, but he'd been busy with the post-Blight efforts in directing sorties to wipe out the remaining war parties of darkspawn. Riordan had explained that this post-Blight time was called the Thaw, and had no idea why it was called that. If Malcolm actively remained with the Wardens, Weisshaupt would probably come back with orders to find Morrigan and he would probably be someone assigned to the task. Part of him wanted the task, wanted to confront Morrigan about what she'd done. If it had been out of love or some misguided lust for power. The other part of him wanted nothing to do with her at all. It hurt too much.

Restlessness took over his actions, making him speak out of turn often while at court and in meetings. It drove him to the practice yard to spar with the straw dummies and willing combatants whenever he could find them, sent him wandering about the palace at all hours, up on the parapets at night or pacing the hallways during the day. His constant movement finally got to Eamon during a meeting and the arl had snapped, "_What_ has gotten into you? You haven't stopped moving in days."

Malcolm stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Eamon pointed at Malcolm's fidgeting hands. "That. You can hardly hold still. And your ability to keep your comments to yourself is worse now than it ever was during the Blight, and that's saying something."

"He needs to go to Highever," Alistair said suddenly. "Fergus has been acting the same way, I noticed it earlier. Even though Rendon Howe is dead, there's no telling if his people remain at Highever Castle. I've still got a good part of the troops from the Bannorn at my disposal. Let's take a division of cavalry up to the coast and make sure your family's castle is firmly in Cousland hands. I know Cailan promised to do the same before Ostagar and I intend on following through with his promise." Alistair stood up. "The Palace is getting stuffy anyway. I could deal with some fresh air. And no arguing with me, Eamon. It needs to be done or he'll drive you crazy and you know it."

Still unsure of his standing with the Grey Wardens, Malcolm stopped by the Warden compound before he, Fergus, and Alistair left the next day. He found Riordan in what had been Duncan's office, glaring at a pile of papers before him. When Malcolm stepped through the doorway, the glare disappeared and Riordan smiled and motioned for him to sit. "I never wanted this job," the commander said. "It was bad enough being Jader's Senior Warden. And now I find that Duncan had not been kidding about the mountains of paperwork. If you're wondering about what Weisshaupt has decided, we've still not heard from them. I suspect it will be some time. They might even send a few Wardens of their own for an inquiry. One never knows with that group. Have you decided what you're going to do, by the way?"

"What?" Malcolm looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Decided whether you're going to stay at court and help your brother with the throne the Grey Wardens ordered the two of you to secure, or to remain active with the Wardens? Honestly, I'd like you to remain with us and be my second. As far as Ferelden has come, they still won't like having a man with an Orlesian accent, though I was born in Highever, as the Warden Commander. You as my second would do much to allay those problems. That, and you'd be good at it. Were you older, you'd be Warden Commander instead of me." His eyes took on a tinge of sadness. "I'm afraid that my Calling will be soon, perhaps within a year, if that. The nightmares from the Blight have yet to subside, though the archdemon has gone from them. Were you to remain with the Wardens as my second, you would be inheriting my job. I'd prefer that, actually, and so would Ferelden."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "That's your sales pitch? Really? Knowing how much I wouldn't want the job, you tell me that's exactly my fate it I stay with the Wardens?"

Riordan shrugged. "I figured being honesty would be better."

"I was a conscript."

"So was my predecessor." At Malcolm's disbelieving look, Riordan grinned. "You don't have to decide today. I heard that Alistair is planning on trip to Highever with you and Fergus and a lot of backup. Were you dropping by to ask me permission?"

Malcolm shifted, still surprised about the job offer. "I think so."

"Go. With the Wardens I have from Orlais and the troops Alistair has given me, I've more than enough people to attend to the matters of the Thaw while you're away. You'll be better for it once you've seen your home, anyway. Just let me know what you've decided once you get back."

Malcolm made his farewell and retreated from the office, his head buzzing with the pros and cons of accepting the appointment. Eamon remained behind at court while Alistair traveled with Fergus and Malcolm to the coast. The northern parts of Ferelden had mostly avoided their lands being Blighted, and as spring was upon them, freeholders were out working their fields. The large contingent of soldiers gained curious looks and a few hesitant waves. Once the people recognized either Alistair, Malcolm, or took note of the King of Ferelden's royal banners, the greetings became more enthusiastic. Overenthusiastic, Alistair said, with Malcolm heartily agreeing. When they saw the Highever banner, however, the greetings became cheers within the boundaries of the teyrnir.

It was early morning when they crested the first hill that offered them a view of Highever Castle. Remnants of the dawn's fog clung to its grey stone walls, shafts of sunlight still nudging the vestiges of the clouds away. Malcolm stared at the sight, the building, the home he hadn't seen in well over a year. Trepidation pounded in his chest at he looked, searching for signs of life, signs of anything within those walls. He tried to force it away, yet hope clung to his thoughts, even though his memories of home held a burning castle in the depths of night, the screams of the dying within, including his mother and father.

"I think I see a banner flying," Fergus said quietly from beside him.

Malcolm squinted at the tops of the towers and saw the same thing.

Fergus and Malcolm urged their horses forward, trying to get close enough to make out what heraldry the banners carried, to know if home would welcome them with open arms or would be filled with antagonistic strangers. After a few minutes, they drew within a distance to see. At the same time, both of them saw that two different types of banners flew. One was Highever. The other was Cousland. Without needing to exchange words, the two brothers kicked their horses into a gallop, heading straight for the castle's gates, Gunnar racing ahead of them. If he closed his eyes, Malcolm could see the memory of his parents, his sister-in-law, and his nephew waiting there to greet them. As if they were with him, he felt their pride in him and Fergus and the work they had done. Howe had seen justice. Loghain had been stopped. A Theirin had rightfully been put on the throne of Calenhad. The Grey Wardens were restored. The Blight was over.

And now, they were home.


End file.
